The Studio of Darkwing Duck
by Re'Becca Jamison
Summary: "Darkwing Duck" was once considered the best television had to offer. But then, the rumors spread and the conspiracies flowed, and "Darkwing's" lead actor, writer, and original visionary, Drake Mallard, vanished. Now, five years later, someone - or something, is trying to drag Darkwing and Drake back into the spotlight, a pair that Drake, more than anyone else, wants to stay dead.
1. Introduction

_"Daring duck of mystery, champion of night!_

 _Swoops out of the shadows, Darkwing owns the night!"_

 _"_ Darkwing Duck _, the roaring success but short-lived cartoon series of five years ago, has been catapulted back into the spotlight today after a fire broke out at DW Studio, home and center of production for the super-hero centered series, late last night. The fire was quickly extinguished before it could spread to nearby buildings or further into the studio by the St. Canard fire department, and St. Canard Police Chief Oxford Bully held a news conference this afternoon to address the matter. On the spot-reporter, Beverly Bo was there…"_

The television that displayed the news story was the only source of light or noise in the dark hallway it overlooked. Spoonerville Prep High School, despite its preppy students, cushy benefactors, and Flat-screen High Definition Television Screens in every corner of every hallway, frowned on spending unnecessary expenses on things like keeping the lights on after the school closed down for the day, or letting the lonely janitor enjoy some source of noise while he worked far into the night dusting the many trophies that over-flowed the expensive glass cabinets that lined every hallway, reorganized the desks, rubbed down the whiteboards, shined the computers, and lastly, mopped the floors. Pausing his work, the sleeves to his much-too big janitorial overalls pushed up over his elbows, the white feathered mallard glanced up at the screen. He pulled the spongy and tape-covered headphones off his head and produced the remote control from his pocket, turning the television's volume up.

 _"Thank you for coming…"_ the large bull greeted the mass of reporters clumped before him in his usually dull, empty voice.

Police Chief Oxford Bully was an aged, tired, and unenthusiastic bull that had lost his passion and fire for cleaning up the streets of St. Canard long ago. Probably because it had become a losing battle long ago. Now, the Chief was only seen every so often on the evening news, providing an empty and defeated update to whatever hopeless story the station was currently soaking for all its worth. To those who knew St. Canard back in its golden area, the current Chief Bully was a sad, mournful sight.

It was a sight that made the mallard watching the story shift his weight uncomfortably, his thoughts wandering back to the good old days of St. Canard, when it was a waterfront wonder. Now, it was a couple dozen blocks of slums and localized crime on the brink of bankruptcy. With a shake of his head, the mallard turned his attention back to the news report.

 _"… The fire was quenched quickly and without incident or injury. We do have reason to believe at this time that the fire was set intentionally, and suspect arson. We currently have no suspects."_

 _"Chief Bully,"_ piped up Portia Featherly above the other reporters, getting the Chief's attention.

Some people left in St. Canard considered it a comfort to see the same green-feathered duck's face and voice on every news slot after all these years, but for others, her biting commentary and, frankly, unprofessional jabs and biased remarks were grating to the nerves. Clearly, Featherly was a staple to the community, providing her the perfect immunity from any executive producer that would love to get her off the air. A sharp smile on her heavily painted face, she addressed the Chief.

 _"It's common knowledge at this point that DW Studio closed down five years ago amid a flurry of scandal and rumors of resentment among the cast and crew, ultimately destroying the show's credibility and stability, and bringing its inevitable albeit abrupt cancellation…"_

"Alright, Featherly," the mallard muttered, "no one's in line for your Emmy, honey." Shoving the mop down into the water-filled bucket, he splashed the water over the sides. As he leaned on the mop, the bucket slipped out from under him, sending him to the floor with a sudsy splash and wet yelp.

 _"In light of all these turbulent times that continuously plagued the Studio and cornerstone, and only, production, do the St. Canard Police have any suspects in the investigation?"_

His interest spiking, the mallard sat up quickly, bubbles popping around him.

In the back of the hallway, meanwhile, shrouded by shadow, a figure lurked around the corner, hockey mask grinning maliciously at the duck.

 _"No, Miss Featherly,"_ Chief Bully sighed _, "we currently have no suspects. And I've never heard the rumors you have posed today about the downfall of the show, and frankly Miss Featherly, don't find it pertinent to the investigation. The St. Canard Police department is currently attempting to make contact with the studio owner, but all efforts so far have failed…"_

With a huff, Drake Mallard clicked off the TV, using the bucket to stand to his feet, his overalls soaked through. "'No suspects'," he mocked, mopping up the puddle around him after trying to flick the suds off his hands and overalls. "I can name half a dozen people that would _loooooooove_ to take a swing at that old eye sore."

Behind Drake, the figure stepped forward, tossing a few hockey pucks into the air and catching them on the end of the hockey stick in their hands. With a small laugh, they tossed the pucks up, and with a cracking swing, sent them flying at Drake.

Startled, Drake straightened, ducking with a yelp as one puck shot over his head. With another yelp, he spun the mop around and caught the second puck with the wet mop head, wiggling the wooden handle to catch the other. Picking up one of the rubber disks that had fallen to the floor, Drake studied them, eyebrows twisted. "Hockey pucks? In the middle of summer?"

Then, from the shadows that filled the other end of the hallway, the figure laughed at him.

"You've met your match, Darkwing Duck!" Tossing a few more pucks into the air, the figure readied to strike, their mask grinning dangerously. "Now, it's time to meet your maker!"

Drake grinned as well. Throwing the mop around his body, he planted his feet in the sudsy puddle, readying his new weapon and facing the attacker. "Now so fast, you hoarse hockey hiccup! It's over-time!"

Their grin growing, the figure launched the pucks. First, Drake swung himself sideways, dodging the first two pellets, swinging the bucket around himself and catching the puck sin the bucket with a splash. Second, after putting the bucket down, he flipped into the air and around, bringing the mop down onto the projectiles. Third, and lastly, he spun the mop before himself windmill style, catching the remaining pucks and dropping them neatly and safely to the floor, on which he tossed the first two rounds.

"HAH!" he laughed at the figure, "not even your projectile puck pellets could net you this Janitor of Justice!" Standing straight, Drake performed a few more moves with the mop, ending his chorus of "hah's" and "hee-yah's" with a heroic pose, a last puck smacking his head from behind.

Ricocheting off Drake's skull, the puck bounced off the glass trophy cabinet behind him, off the ceiling, off the floor, and back and forth between the two, ricocheting around the hallway with growing velocity and unpredictability. Bouncing off the mop handle Drake had moved to reflect the attack, the puck zoomed for the masked figure, who squealed and dropped to the floor. With a yelp, Drake lunged at the figure and slid to them, covering their body with his own, waiting for the onslaught to end –

Suddenly, the mallard reached above his head and caught the puck midair. He lowered it to the huddle of himself and the mask-wearing figure, turning the rubber disk over in his hand to examine it as he sat up off the other. Having deemed it harmless, Drake snapped his attention to the figure underneath him with a sharp glare, giving the mask three knocks with the rubber pellet. Blinking, it smiled innocently up at him.

"Ricochet pucks?" he frowned as the other sat up as well, pulling the mask from their face. "Gosalyn Julifeather Cavanary Waddlemeyer-Mallard, _pleeeease_ tell me you didn't use ricochet pucks _inside_ the school!"

Her dandelion cheeks blushing, Gosalyn offered an unconvincing grin. "Grabbed it by accident?"

"At least," Drake ran a hand down his long face, flicking his bill and standing and helping his daughter to her feet, even though Gosalyn was close to his equal in height, "we managed to avoid another major incident, _unlike last time_."

Right on cue, the shiny glass cabinets, glittering gold trophies, flat-screen television screen, and even the glass covering portrait of the school's dean all shattered at once, sending a carpet of glass fragments all over the floor. The two Mallards stared at the mess in shocked silence, their eyes bulging.

"Run?" asked Gosalyn.

"Run." Her father replied. So they did, Gosalyn skating forward on her skates and cutting a path through the glass, opening the doors on the end of the hallway for Drake. Drake, only a half-step behind, scooped up the mop, vaulted over the glass with it, leaping off the bucket, sending a final soapy splash all over the floor, and soared right through the open doors and past the cringing teenager, bouncing his way down the front steps. Checking behind them as if they could have left someone behind in the dark hallway, Gosalyn slammed the door closed, grinding down the stair railing and helping her dad to his feet.

"Now where to?" she asked, Drake leading them to their lemon-yellow station wagon.

"Home, Gosalyn, back home!"

"The trailer park?"

"To St. Canard! I've got a sneaking suspicion that someone is expecting our return!"


	2. Welcome to St Canard

"Ah, the Audubon Bay," Drake smiled, the family's rickety lemon hugging the curves of the rocky road that lead them around back cliffs of St. Canard, bypassing the rest of the city. The road clearly wasn't designed for the main populace, as one side clung to the bare, rocky foundation of St. Canard and the other was the rough, jagged coast of the Bay, but it got them around the congestion and traffic of the cramped downtown. "St. Canard used to have a booming tourist industry, you know," the mallard smiled at Gosalyn, who was packed safely in the passenger seat next to him.

Gosalyn was a spunky, spirited, fiery fifteen-year-old. Her dandelion-gold downy duckling feathers had never fully grown out, probably due to the stresses the girl had been through in her short-lived childhood, but had simply evolved into a beautiful and soft coat sprinkled with freckles when she spent too much time in the sun. As much as Drake adored them, however, her downy feathers were always a point of major frustration for the young girl, but her father had assured her that he too was an "ugly duckling" when he was a kid, and provided what little proof he could of his copper-brown feathers and winged stripes, not to mention his comically over-sized bill and feet. Comforted, she had turned her attention instead to her strawberry blonde hair, wondering if she should dye it back to its original scarlet. Drake often wished she would get it cut at least, or pin it back to keep her bangs out of her eyes, but the most she ever did with it was a sloppy ponytail, so he had silently accepted the compromise long ago.

Drake continued, motioning out the window to Gosalyn's side to the water that stretched out around them. "And it's easy to see why. That fresh ocean air, those crystal-clear waters, the noble Audubon Bridge standing high and proud above this calm, warm and life-filled bay like a monument of industry and growth between all masses of living creatures!"

Smiling, Gosalyn rolled her window down, sticking her head outside to catch a glimpse of the bridge far behind them. She took a deep breath of the fresh air, and gagged when the sea salt stung her nose and the stench of the rotting seaweed and trash that covered the coastline slapped her senses.

"Bleh," she gagged, rolling the window back up and plugging her nostrils. "Sure dad, 'fresh air'."

"That's the smell of economy," Drake pointed at her, "you need to give yourself a chance to get appropriately acclimated!"

Among the murky waves, a crab wrestled with a tin can, scaring away a seagull with a six-pack plastic wrap around its neck, who coughed up a tuna can. Out of which flopped a sardine, whom the crab snatched up before it could wiggle its way to the water. Gosalyn gagged again, turning away from the window. St. Canard had certainly changed since her father had last been there.

But they had both changed as well. Drake was older, more aged, but Gosalyn never knew him when he was young, so she never really noticed. As for herself, Gosalyn used to be a small, too small for her age, firecracker of a little girl. Her hair was a more scarlet red than it was presently, her feathers were just as golden, and she loved wearing shoes but hated wearing pants, and since she was just a kid, Drake never made her. Shoes helped protect her premature feet, and pants irritated her sensitive tail. Unfortunately for Drake's ever empty wallet, she kept the habit of wearing sneakers, but he'd rather her wear them while out doing her daring deeds than handling them barefooted. He knew how irritating foot injuries were, and earnestly prayed he would never had to live with a bed-ridden or crutch-condemned Gosalyn.

Over the last five years they had both learned to make things last, and each had a few favorite possessions to themselves. Drake always kept his atrociously 90's white and blue plastic windbreaker wherever he went, and used to have his own collection of polo shirts to wear underneath until Gosalyn started stealing them. Then he focused more on graphic tees they could both stand to wear, and cheaply replace. Gosalyn herself wasn't caught without her dad's old St. Canard High letterman jacket. The white and purple design swallowed her when she first started wearing it, and she asked every day if she could, but for her 13th birthday, when she could actually fit into it halfway properly, Drake officially gave it to her. The jacket was the only piece of St. Canard that had lasted.

Now that she was older and taller, the jacket fit well, long enough for her and loose enough for all kinds of crazy antics. Because Gosalyn was obsessed with sports, a passion Drake actively supported, she was strong, stronger than most teens her age and size, but was short for most gooses, now just under her father in height. He was confident she would surpass him one day, even if just by a little, and certainly in more ways than height. Gosalyn was strong minded and strong willed, but utterly adored her father. The "terrible teens" had never really struck her, or had yet to, and the two were a team almost stronger than their own wills when combined. Certainly no intellectual-student like her father, Gosalyn had struggled in school, despite Drake's best home-schooling efforts, but excelled in strength of character and merits. At the end of the day, and though he had seen his daughter grow tremendously in the last five years, she still had a lot of growing and discovering to do, and Drake was ecstatic to walk with her through it.

Part of him just wished her favorite jacket would last as well, but he had his doubts. The thing had been in tatters for a while.

"Still," she piped up with a smile, kicking her sneakers against the dashboard, which earned her a pointed look from her father, "it sure was nice of old Headmaster Mc-Stiff-Lip to not saddle you with the bill for all that damage! Those snotty brats can survive a day or two without their oh-so-precious trophies shoved down their throats."

With a sigh, Drake steered the car off the expressway, the tires bumping along the gravel driveway that lead into the "Possum Bottom Trailer Park". Gosalyn, eyeing the weathered possum on the welcome sign, yelped when the creature turned quite suddenly and glared at her before scampering away and flopped rather unceremoniously onto the dead grass around the sign, missing the mostly dead bushes.

"Sure it was," Drake bit back, "instead he just fired me, turned the home-owners association against us, and got us run out of town…" Pulling up to the front office, he stomped on the emergency break and turned to Gosalyn with his hands on hips, "that's _all_."

She offered a bashful smile.

"Well," clicking his seat belt free, Drake dug around under the seat for his wallet, "might as well mark Spoonerville off the map."

With a roll of her green eyes, Gosalyn waited for her dad to leave the car before kicking the glove box in front of her. The latch sprung open and their over-sized and wrinkled atlas exploded free.

"I saw that," Drake warned, heading to the office building at the front gate to check in and rent a lot, assuming the place would be standing long enough for him to make it inside.

"Sorry!" called Gosalyn, wrestling the map open and swimming around its folds to find Spoonerville. With the red marker she snatched from the glove box, she scribbled generously over the city, writing "Rikoshay Puck Vs. Trophy Case" across it, finishing the notation with a skull and cross bones. Sitting back, the springs in her seat squeaking, Gosalyn's eyes roamed back and forth across the map, which was almost completely covered with various cities, the reasons they left, and the dotted lines connecting to them. They left Sabre Way because of the "Pumpkin Patch Incident." Utah Straights thanks to the "Pizzeria Funzone Fire." Salt Springs after the "Mad Cow Epidemic," which, she had noted underneath, had NOTHING to do with them. The only untouched piece in the whole map was St. Canard and Duckburg, and Gosalyn traced their path to their new home, circling it.

Drake returned not long after that and drove to an empty lot near the back of the park. St. Canard certainly didn't have much room to spare, but the "back" of the city, which was on the opposite side of the city as the Audubon Bay Bridge, was a little more openly spaced. The rocky terrain and unsteady foundation, seeing that the opening of the Bay pounded against the shore and wore away at the rocks, wasn't fit for the taller skyscrapers in downtown. Instead, its scenic view had always been utilized for the tourist and nature-orientated side of the economy, and though the economic crash had almost completely killed the industry, dirty and weather-worn trailer-parks like "Possum Bottom Trailer Park" hinted at a thriving heritage, with its few pine trees for the aesthetic, gravel driveways and dead grass, and muddy, sandy coastline. It wasn't the most disgusting place they had ever lived, and Gosalyn had to admit, she had never really known this side of the city had even existed.

"Gosalyn! Come help me get the trailer unhitched!"

"Coming," the teen called back, excitedly scribbling "Home of Darkwing Duck" on the map next to St. Canard. Stretching the map out before her, she grinned at her handiwork. St. Canard was where it had all started, and she was more excited than she'd ever let her dad know to be back –

Suddenly, a loud metal clatter sounded from outside and Gosalyn blinked. Crumbling the map back up and shoving it into the glove box, which she kicked closed, she hurried outside and followed her dad's irritated mutters. He was knelt by the driver's side of the trailer, trying to secure a loose panel back over the power connectors.

"You know what Dad," Gosalyn retied the letterman around her waist as she watched Drake over his shoulder beat the panel back into place with his fists, "I've got a good feeling about this place! I think this may be… the one!"

Drake scoffed, turning the panel around backwards and trying to jam it into place. "That's what you said about Spoonerville! And Jackal Point, and Highcrest, _and_ Steamboat City, and look at how those ended."

Rearing her foot back suddenly, Gosalyn kicked the panel, denting a large hole in the center but bending it to the hole so it didn't fall off anymore. Her dad, however, quacked loudly in fright.

"Uh – hmhmm," he cleared his throat and stood, "thank you."

Gosalyn watched him stand, dust his hands off, and move to the hitch keeping the trailer connected to the car. She followed eagerly, gesturing excitedly with her hands. "But I mean it, Dad! St. Canard feels different! This is where it all started, yah know. The lights, the cameras, the action! This is the home of Darkwing –!"

"ENOUGH!" Drake screamed suddenly, bolting upright from where he knelt by the hitch and glaring down at her. " _Darkwing Duck_ was a _television_ character that I played on _television_! He wasn't real! And before you go and argue, 'oh, but he was a hero, and we're supposed to look up to our heroes!', well guess what sister, he wasn't that either!" Stopping for breath, Drake jammed himself back onto the ground, strangling the hitch release lever with both hands and giving it a few good yanks. "And I - I might add - am no hero either, despite what your impromptu hockey attacks might lead you to think!" His previous tugs failing, Drake scooted back and gave a few full-body yanks on the lever. "If I was, I'd be able to keep a job… for more than a few months… we wouldn't be moving… to a new city a dozen... times a year… I wouldn't be on the run... from debt collectors… and you would have had a normal childhood!" When his grip slipped, Drake tumbled backwards across the gravel with a grunt and sat up with an angry snap. "Sonofa - A little help? Please?!"

Face tight, Gosalyn marched over and kicked the handle, the thing popping loose and dropping the trailer, which landed in the rubble with a cloud of loose bolts and nuts. One of the front tires snapped off and caught Drake right in the abdomen, tossing him back off his recently regained footing and back onto the gravel.

"Dad!" Gosalyn yelped, running over. "Are you okay? I told you to get that tire tightened! It's going to kill you one of these days!"

Drake didn't reply, just sat quietly and rolled the tire from his lap. The weariness in his face softened the edge of Gosalyn's own temper, and she dropped her hands from her hips, offering one to Drake. Blue eyes flicked up at it briefly, before Drake sighed and dusted off his windbreaker.

"Oh," he took Gosalyn's offered hand and allowed her to pull him to his feet, "I'm sorry Gosalyn. But," they rolled the tire back to the trailer, Drake shouldering it so she could fit the thing back onto the axle, " _Darkwing_ _was_ a long time ago." With a small grunt, the mallard dropped the trailer onto the wheel, leaning against it and smoothing back his head feathers. Gosalyn, still sitting on her knees by the tire, watched him expectantly. "Please, Gos, can't we just once let the past stay in the past? Especially here? At least until we get settled in?"

"Sure, Dad," she muttered, pulling herself up and around him towards the back of the trailer. At the door, while Drake kicked the wooden stoppers under the tires, she paused on the steps and turned to him. "But, why?"

"Gosalyn-"

"I mean, I know we've always had to keep it on the down low-"

"Gosalyn-!"

"But - you've never told me why!"

"Gos-!"

"I deserve to know-!"

"Because!" Drake snapped, throwing the wooden brakes onto the ground. Wrapping his arms around himself as if to catch his own anger before it escaped, the mallard took a deep breath and blew it out through his nose. Once he was a little more composed, he aimed guilty blue eyes up at Gosalyn. "Because that was Boxer, and Eisenhower Park, and the west coast and the north coast, and everywhere else other than _St. Canard_. This is where is happened, Gosalyn, this city, these streets. Right here."

"But what happened?!" Pleaded the teen, dropping off the steps and closer to her dad. "Dad, tell me what-!"

"Not now, Gosalyn!"

"But Dad-!"

"ENOUGH!" Drake cried, advancing on Gosalyn with a sharp glare. "Discussion is closed! You will NEVER know the truth, so help me-!"

Goaslyn stared, and once the shock passed, her face hardened into a scowl. Ponytail flicking behind her, the teen pivoted on her heel and leaped up the steps and into the trailer. Drake watched her go, released another breath through his nose, and turned around to scoop up the tangled brakes. As he straightened, the door behind him squeaked open and slammed shut with a clatter, and Gosalyn stomped down the steps with her letterman around her shoulders and Ankle Killer, her old skateboard, under her arm. Plugging the spongy, tape-covered headphones into her long-outdated phone, she made a point of ignoring her father, who watched her with a scowl.

"Where do you think you're going?" he asked, planting his hands on his hips.

"To see if that old half-pipe is still standing," the teen replied shortly, turning away from him and turning the music blasting in her headphones up even louder.

"Gosalyn-!"

"Don't worry, if anything happens I'll just call my hero, Dork-wrong Dad, like always." With a sharp glare, she put the headphones on and crunched down the gravel driveway towards town.

Drake turned back to the trailer, rubbing the back of his head. The wooden brakes were still clutched in his hand, and he massaged the rope as his brow scowled in thought.

"Maybe this was a bad idea…" With a toss, the blocks hit the trailer and knocked a bolt loose, which sprung outwards and bounced off the back of Drake's head. Glaring at the trailer, the mallard rubbed the spot with an annoyed scowl.

* * *

The grinding of the sidewalk under her wheels was a well known sensation for the teen, and as she drifted through the city, the familiar feeling was a comfort in the lonely crowds.

It was obvious to Gosalyn that St. Canard was nowhere near the place they left, nor the sparkling city her dad remembered so fondly. But, while exploring the back streets and side alleys, she began to really piece the transformation together into the sad, travesty of a story it really was. Street-side businesses were boarded up left and right, graffiti covered the walls, weeds grew from the cracks in the sidewalks, and piles of trash and trashcans cluttered up every corner. She stopped briefly to let her eyes roam over a power line pole over-crowded with missing posters and once happy, living faces. Some were old, some were new, but the posters absolutely covered every inch of the surface, and any other nearby surface they could cling. Across the street, a dejected figure hung another, and Gosalyn watched them sadly.

"Seems like a lot of missing people for a small city," she mumbled to herself, then, hearing a whistle, turned around with a ready glare. Some hoodlum looking types were watching her from across the street, so she pressed onward, trying to ignore their glances. If she got in a fight now, she would have to call her dad for help, somehow doubting the proficiency of the local police force, and that was a humbling lesson she wasn't in the mood for.

Though she did clutch her phone more tightly in her pocket and turned her music down. Considerably.

Gosalyn was born and bred in St. Canard, just like her dad, but since they moved when she was ten, she never knew much about the city like he did, and he knew a lot. Drake was filled with a strange mixture of resentment and nostalgia for the peninsula, consumed and obsessed with its history and success while equally fixated on its collapse and decline. And the city _had_ collapsed. Gosalyn wasn't sure why, but the truth was simple: _Darkwing Duck_ had been an uproarious success, and rocketed St. Canard into international fame and an unequaled boom. The climb was instantaneous and drastic, and the fall when _Darkwing_ crumbled was all the more devastating. It was an economic crash that shook the very foundation of the business structure and pedestrian system, and when the masses left and took their money with them, St. Canard became a ghost town and a complete economic failure. And it hadn't come even close to recovering, not five years later.

After a few turns, Gosalyn found herself in the old business district, filled with empty sky scrapers and dirty bus stops. Even the grass here was dried and brown, matching the rust that covered the city like acidic snow. Stopping abruptly, kicking Ankle Killer up into her hand, she stared upwards and took in the particularly pitiful sight she had wandered upon, in all its haunted glory.

Police tape surrounded the old building, which suggested some kind of law enforcement element, though the rest of the structure was untouched. The gentle scent of smoke still hung in the air, and black char marks reached upwards from the front windows and licked at the walls. High above the ground, the bulbs broken or long-since stolen, hung the old "DW STUDIOS" sign, suspended as if from a noose.

"Gee whiz," Gosalyn muttered, "no wonder this place almost burned down."

Frowning, the teen removed her headphones and – after checking each way for the prying eyes of the law – ducked under the police tape and tiptoed her way to one of the windows, which was black with smoke but still intact. "Rats," she growled, spotting the front double doors instead. Thankfully, the firemen had smashed the lock to get into the burning building, and no one had cared enough to repair it. Slipping inside, careful to keep herself clean of ash, Gosalyn kept pressed against the entrance, letting her eyes adjust to the new world of darkness and the smell of dust and smoke and melted plastic. The front of the studio, past the reception's desk and lobby, was like a jungle, filled with old relics and skeletons of lighting cranes, camera jigs, and spare lights. Light fixtures stood tall and empty, boo-mic stands were stacked in piles, and chairs and various pieces of equipment filled the place, casting odd angles and crocked shadows back and forth across the old tile floor.

"Keen gear," smiled Gosalyn, pulling her cell phone from her pocket for a light and tucking Killer under her other arm. Extravagant double doors opened up into the main studio space, and Gosalyn aimed her small light around after pushing herself clear of the doors.

The cave was large and empty, and filled with similar skeletons like the lobby outside, only three times their size. Catwalk bridges were suspended far above her head, a skylight window stretched the length of the building, the further half of which was covered by a hanging tarp that blocked the filtered sunlight, rolling camera mounts slept where they stood, and piles and piles of props and costumes were shoved into the back corners. Immediately, she recognized the first set as Darkwing Tower, secret base of Darkwing Duck in the Audubon Bay Bridge. Giving a small squeal, Gosalyn ran onto the set and quickly began to touch absolutely everything.

"There's the windows that over-look St. Canard," she pointed, "and there's the windows that over-look Duckburg! Ah! The trap door that lead to the secret underwater entrance! All the super computers Darkwing used to build gadgets and analyze evidence! And the garage lift that the Ratcatcher was parked on!" She set Killer down near the platform and scaled it, which was about eight feet tall, round, and covered with dust. Once on top, she took hold of the old musty sheet and threw it aside, revealing what slept underneath. There, glinting slightly in the thin sunlight, sat the Ratcatcher, still coiled and ready to pounce like a slumbering tiger. The teen made quick work of dusting it off and climbing on board. Hands on the clutch and brakes, she turned the old wheel, growling and roaring in place of the dormant engine.

"I am the newest vigilante on the scene!" she declared. "I am the thrilling, rejuvenating reboot that reassures the retired audiences! The rehash hero that chases down the criminals, stops the snooper, thwarts the thieves, and keeps St. Canard safe! I am – uh…" frowning, Gosalyn sat back, rubbing her bill. "I am Darkwing Duckling? Violent Violet? The Quackinator?" With a shrug, Gosalyn leaped off the bike and jumped off the platform. "Well, whatever."

"Costumes!" she cried suddenly, rushing to the costume racks in the corner and kicking up a cloud of dust with her sneakers. "Megavolt's battery hat! Buthroot's bushy wig! Quackerjack's jester hat! Hey," scowled the girl, stepping away from the collection, "where's Darkwing?" After tearing every piece off the rack and tossing them behind her, she growled and crossed her arms with a small huff. "Well that's just great! Star of the show and you don't even leave any of his costume pieces laying around? Hmm," heading back to the center of the set, she tapped her bill. "If I was Dad, where would I want my costume pieces, being the star of the show, to be?"

As she paced around, Gosalyn leaned on one of the set walls. Suddenly, the thin plaster crumbled at her touch and dumped her through the wall and onto the dusty floor on the other side. The hallway she found herself in was totally dark, and her phone flew from her hand, cutting and circling through the dusty cloud and clattering down the hallway and into the darkness.

"Oops," the teen coughed, waving the dust cloud clear and sitting up, kicking her feet free from the rubble. Spotting her phone, she huffed and stood, looking wearily around.

This hallway was still and quiet, completely untouched by the smoke and movement of the firemen from a few days ago, or the light from the sunlight outside. The air was dead, and the dust cloud Gosalyn had kicked up quickly fell heavily back to the floor, joining the thick layer of dust already coating the wood. Gosalyn sneezed and tiptoed down the hall and snatched her phone. As she lifted it and looked around, something muted but shining glinted, and her eyes snapped there.

The hallway was lined with doors, on each of which was a dusty silver plaque. Gosalyn stepped closer and wiped the first one clean, discovering a name underneath.

"Elmo Sputterspark: Megavolt," she read, an excited smile splitting her face. "Keen Gear! ... Reginald Bushroot: Bushroot … Bud Flood: Liquidator… Who knew the cast had such crazy names," she muttered, having reached the last door. Another sneeze crept up her throat and rattled free, knocking the teen a few steps backwards. Her back bumped into another door, and she turned to it, a small gasp escaping her. This door, unlike the others, was smashed inward right down the middle, the splints of wood slashed and carved into by a sharp blade, digging and tearing and ripping the grain apart.

"What the heck..." Gosalyn muttered, eyes roaming over the pile of wood and to her own feet. The dust around the door was scuffed and mixed up, with dozens of footprints covering it. The prints, however, had been trampled by her own, and she couldn't get a read from them. The teen frowned, tilted her head, and aimed her phone at the floor to snap a photo. "Why would some smash this... door?" Through the lens, something winked up at her, and Gosalyn carefully dug among the wood until her fingers hit cool metal. It was a large golden star, and among the claw marks that had shredded the face of it, was a name.

"... Dad."

Suddenly, something near the front of the building crashed and sent a shuddering echo all round the building, muffled by the shrouded hallway. Gosalyn squawked in fright, clamping a hand around her bill as she stared down the dark hall and up towards, what she assumed, was the front of the building. Her phone light only reached so far, and the remaining darkness tried to swallow it. A tremble set into her feathers and chills rippled up her spine, and Gosalyn rubbed her arms with her free hand. Then, another noise drifted near, and she frowned.

"Huh."

* * *

Tiptoeing to the edge of the hallway and back through the hole she had punctured in the thin wall, the teen followed the voices towards the lobby. A few of them were rough and burly, but one more was nasally and high-pitched. The victim was easy enough to spot as she poked her head back into the lobby, even among the twisted shadows and faded light streaming in through the windows: a tall, lanky, yellow-colored canary with over-sized glasses, wearing a wrinkled dress shirt and baggy hoodie. The bullies, well, they were nothing note-worthy. Just potential targets.

"What're you so scared of?" one of them asked, shoving the canary from behind. "I thought you liiiiiiked Dorkwing Duck!"

Gosalyn gasped excitedly, clamping her bill shut again.

"It's 'Darkwing'!" the canary argued, gulping as he was shoved again while the bullies ripped his backpack off his thin shoulders.

"Yeah, figures a nerd like you would know!" Laughing, the bullied dumped the contents on the floor, a couple others holding the canary back. A few textbooks dropped out heavily, then an inhaler, a digital camera that made a heart-wrenching snap when it hit the floor, and lastly some comic books. Which, judging by the quick flashes of unmistakable purple, were undoubtedly _Darkwing Duck_.

"Those were limited edition," Gosalyn noted. "Who is this kid?"

The leader of the bullies snatched up a comic book, and with a quick twist, gutted it.

"Yeeeep," purred the teen, leaning back into the shadows and looking around, "that's definitely a 'no'." The old studios were filled with junk she couldn't operate and dusty old costumes she didn't fit. Then, as she was figuring out if she could jump the Ratcatcher off its pedestal and survive to tell about it, a familiar shape of worn wood and wheels caught her eye. "Oh," she grinned, eyes sparkling, "and Dad thinks he's the only genius around."

"Put that down!" the canary outside protested, kicking and pulling his arms to get free as the bullies picked up another comic. "Those are limited edition! Please!"

"What's wrong kid," mocked the bully, waving the book in the teen's face, "is Dorkwing not coming to your rescue?"

Grabbing the pages off the ground, the bully ripped them in half and the others laughed while the teen continued to beg.

"Alright, alright," the leader finally sighed, walking back over to the taller teen, glaring up into his glasses. "You want your precious coloring books back so badly? Well then go and get them!" With a single throw, the comic books flew past the double doors and into the dark set beyond, disappearing from sight.

"No – no – no!" wheezed the teen, wriggling in the bullies' hold. "I – I – I can't!"

"Why not? You're not afraid of a little dark are you? Well, we wouldn't be pals if we didn't help you conquer that!" All at once, the bullies grabbed the protesting teen, shoved him into the dark room, and barricaded the door behind him by tying the handles together with some loose wire. From the other side, the teen cried and pleaded, his efforts muffled by the sound proofing.

When the canary started crying, the bullies began to applaud themselves. Their celebration done, they turned back to the front doors, but a booming voice swallowed them.

 _"Locking that boy up in a cold, dark studio? How considerate…"_

Gulping, the bullies froze and looked around frantically as the booming voice began to laugh.

 _"After all, I am the terror that flaps in the night!"_ A smoke cloud kicked up suddenly, the bullies coughing and trying to wave it away. _"I am the dust particle that gets in your eye!"_ Rising out of the smoke, a hooded figure with glowing eyes glared down at the bullies, the voice growing even louder. _"I am Darkwiiiiiiiing Duck!"_

Shrieking in fear, the bullies toppled over themselves to get out the front doors, screaming for help and for someone to call the police. Once they were gone and the dust slowly settled, Gosalyn sneezed.

"Bless me," she muttered, wiping her bill and and waving the dust clear of her position behind the lighting crane. Over the shoulders of an empty light fixture, Gosalyn had tied one of the old Darkwing capes, the iconic fedora on its head, and her cellphone in the empty socket providing the glowing eyes. The whole thing sat on Ankle Killer, and Gosalyn climbed up it quickly, snatching her flashlight from the empty light socket.

"Wait until I tell Dad! Oh, then again – Wha-!" Spinning, Gosalyn stared at the barricaded doors when a splitting scream sounded from behind them. The scream, after a moment of silence, dissolved into meek hiccups, and Gosalyn panted. "Gee whiz kid," she called, jumping off her invention and hurrying to them, "I almost forget you were in there!"

It didn't take long to untie the wiring, and once the doors were free, Gosalyn threw them open. The other teen pounced onto her, his arms wrapping around her neck and tackling her to the floor in a heap.

"DARKWING! SAVE ME, PLEASE!" he shrieked, hugging Gosalyn tightly.

Frowning, Gosalyn tapped the canary's head, who blinked his eyes open and turned to her.

"Hiya, champ," she waved, and the other cried out again, scrambling off and away from the redhead.

"I'm - I'm sorry!" he stammered, and Gosalyn sat up, looking the other's trembling frame over.

"Hah! Don't worry about it, kid!" scoffed the teen, waving away the other's concerns. "It's all in a day's work for-"

"MY COMICS!" shrieked the other, diving for his books and scooping them up.

"The... Avian... Avenger... You're welcome."

The other, however, was infinitely more interested in collecting his scattered books, and Gosalyn watched him for a moment. With a sigh, she pushed herself up and crawled towards the other to begin collecting the pages as well. "Here. Hey kid," as he tried to pull the pages from her hands, she tugged back on them. "Are you okay?"

"Y-yeah," he nodded, eyes fleeing her own quickly. "Th-th-thanks."

"You, like, need this?" Seeing his inhaler in her hand, the teen blushed brightly and snatched it from her.

"No!" he bit. Then, after turning his back on her, took a quick puff. Gosalyn nodded her head.

"Sure. Don't mention it. I'm," she stood and offered to pull the other up as well, "kind of a _Darkwing_ fan myself."

"Really?!" With renewed vigor, the teen sprung to his feet and grabbed Gosalyn's jacket, staring into her eyes. "I've never met another fan! Well, at least not in a really long time... How long have you been watching? I own the collector's edition! Which season is your favorite?! I liked the first one, but the second had some really good-!"

"I kinda liked them all," Gosalyn giggled hesitantly, pulling herself free of his grip and backpedaling a few feet. "I guess you could say it's in the family?"

Gathering his items back in his backpack, the canary turned to her. "It is? How do you mean? You have to let me get a selfie with you!" Suddenly, the canary had one arm around Gosalyn's shoulders, flashing a quick picture of the two of them with his camera.

With a chuckle, she rubbed the spots out of her eyes when he withdrew. "Well y'see, whoever-you-are, my dad—"

"-Is going to need a very good lawyer," a gruff voice from behind the two growled, the teens spinning around with a loud scream. Three or four cops filed into the foyer after the other, all glaring down at the teens.

Smiling, the canary backed up behind her, and Gosalyn waved. "Heya, St. Canard's finest! Hehe, big fans!"


	3. St Canard, Mending Hearts

The rolling cell door rattled as a portly officer opened it and lumbered forward, a clipboard in his hands.

"Gosalyn Mallard?" he asked in a monotone voice, the convicts and criminals stuffed into the cell sending a wave of sharp glares at him. "Heh," he chirped nervously, sinking behind the clipboard. "Gosalyn… Mallard?"

"Here!" Gosalyn called back, kicking and elbowing her way from between two thugs, who did their best to move aside for her in the over packed cell. She strode happily to the officer's side, spinning around and waving at the merry bunch. "I'll see you around guys, yeah? Remember—"

"It's not what you are, it's who you are!" the group chorused with a delighted wave to the teen. "Tootle-loo!"

With a contented sigh, Gosalyn lead the way out of holding area. Startled at his new loneliness, the cop jumped and followed after her quickly.

"Y'know," she sighed, putting her hands on her hips and leaning on one as the officer locked up another door behind them, "those ruffians really aren't all that bad, just a little rough around the edges is all. Hah, guess that's why they are called 'ruffians,' I just thought of that. Now, if you want to see the real definition of bad, you should meet my – _hiii,_ Dad!"

Drake Mallard, windbreaker jacket on, arms crossed with one foot tapping quickly, glared at his daughter. She offered a nervous giggle.

"So nice of you to come?"

* * *

Outside the police station, the sun was beginning to set and the skyscrapers around them cast the duo into darkness, Drake lead the two to the lemon, jamming the key into the passenger side door and unlocking it.

"ONE day, Gosalyn! ONE! DAY!" After throwing the door open for her, he stormed around to the other side and repeated the procedure, beating a fist into the roof for emphasis as he snarled at her. "We've been back in St. Canard for _one day_ and I've _already_ been called to the police station to pick up my under-age daughter from containment!"

Finally climbing in, he slammed his door shut, turning to face the teen who had slunk into the car as well. "I thought you said St. Canard would be different! What happened?!"

"Dad-!" Gosalyn argued desperately, "there was this kid – and these bullies and – and – I had to help him!"

The car sputtered to life as Drake turned the key, the two putting their seat-belts on. "No, Gosalyn, not _that_ , _EVERYTHING_ else! You… you broke into the old studio?"

As if deflating, Drake turned to Gosalyn with a broken, betrayed expression. She blinked, and - crossing her arms defensively - turned forward in her seat.

"It-it was unlocked..."

"You caused property damage!"

"Everything was already broken when I got there anyway!"

"And you crossed a police line and entered a crime scene!"

Opening her mouth to argue, Gosalyn clipped it shut and sat back in the car with a defeated pout. "It's not like anyone cares about that crummy old studio anyway."

"That's not the point," Drake growled, turning the key and waiting for the lemon to sputter to life. "You broke the law, Gosalyn, and you disobeyed me! I told you to leave all this _Darkwing_ stuff alone!"

"Not like you ever gave me a reason."

"You mean, besides me telling you to?"

"No! More than that!"

"So obeying your father doesn't mean anything anymore, does it?!"

"That's not what I said!"

"That's what it sounded like!"

"I just want a reason, Dad!"

"And I just want you to stay out of trouble for one day, but I didn't get that, now did I?"

Gasping slightly, Gosalyn huffed and turned towards the window with a growl. Her face was hot and her ears were ringing, and if her father tried to say anything after that, she didn't hear it. The tears threatening to burn her eyes were much too distracting.

"Some hero. At least _I_ was brave enough to actually do some good."

His hands clenching on the steering wheel, Drake turned to Gosalyn in shock, mouth agape. Scoffing and shaking his head, he turned back to the road. That kind of remark deserved grounding for sure, he was sure of it. And as the heat between them fogged the windows and began to cool, he readjusted his grip. The leather squeaked in protest, and he pulled his hands off and sat back. One hand ran down his face and across his neck, and he scratched the back of his neck.

He hated being mad at her, and he hated her being mad at him. But more importantly, he hated that he had caused it.

Fighting with each other was the worst possible thing that could happen in their small world. Father and daughter alike were equally headstrong, impulsive, and hot-tempered, always had been, and each one lacked a few emotional foundations due to their traumatizing childhoods. It was a scarring lesson for the family to learn, but the two-weeks long battle that ravished the small household after leaving St. Canard revealed two things: one, Gosalyn had a crippling inability to express her emotions, especially through words, leaving her only her misdirected accusations and physical outbursts to get her feelings out. And two, that Drake was completely oblivious to any and all emotional cues, leaving him utterly useless in helping his little girl realize and express what she was feeling properly. The war had been a long one, with Gosalyn unable to express her fear and anger about the move, and Drake being completely oblivious of the affects it was really having on the ten-year-old. The whole thing had left deep scars on the two ducks, scars that were still healing, even five years later.

Drake knew, after slowly piecing the puzzle that was Gosalyn Julifeather Cavanary Waddlemeyer-Mallard together since adopting her, a picture that was far from complete, that Gosalyn's biggest fear was one day becoming the "problem child" label she had been given at a young age. After getting in trouble, her first impulse was to play the situation down to a significantly smaller severity than it really was to protect her reputation. She never did it out of lack of respect for the act or consequences, she understood those perfectly, and that's what drove her fear. Punishments were permanent in the teen's mind, and could never be wiped off her record. The more marks she amassed the closer she would be to becoming just another unfortunate result of a broken adoption program, a label and fate that she could never control or escape no matter how hard she tried.

Thankfully, fear was one of the few emotions Drake _could_ empathize with. He had lived most of his life controlled by it, cowering away from the emotional traps of the spiders that filled the world. To protect his sensitive soul, he learned, early on, to build walls, and to maintain them at all times, no exceptions. Emotional maturity at his age was almost unheard of, but he hated seeing his baby girl hurting more than he was terrified of making himself vulnerable. Additionally, learning that it was his own inability to connect with and help the struggling girl were all of his deepest fears realized. So, he was trying. It wasn't easy, a few therapists here and there, like their beloved family-councilor back in Boxer, had helped, but each Mallard struggled for the sake of their family.

Nonetheless, they were certainly no perfect family by any stretch of the imagination, and they both had very powerful compasses. A teen that struggled to express her emotions paired with a walled-up old duck that lacked all ability to read emotional cues and connect with people on that level was a combination doomed by many to fail. And they had been told so before, many times. But Drake and Gosalyn Mallard were headstrong if nothing else, and weren't letting their family, or intense bond they had with each other, go anywhere without a bloody, serious fight.

They both secretly hoped it would never come down to that. Not again.

* * *

At the trailer park, the sun finally reaching the horizon and streaking the world in long shadows, Drake stomped on the emergency break and stormed out of the car after jamming it into park. The windows of the old lemon rattling as he slammed the door behind him, making Gosalyn wince. Turning in her seat to watch her dad stomp up the steps and jam the key into the trailer door, Gosalyn quickly pushed her door open and called after him.

"Dad! You know, that kid from the studio was a big fan of… yours... of Darkwing's."

Finally getting the door open, Drake paused long enough to slump forward and sigh, wiping a hand across his face. "Sometimes I wish you weren't."

Stunned, Gosalyn jammed herself back into the seat, arms crossed with a pout. She watched Drake disappear into the trailer from the corner of her eye and somehow suppressed the urge to run after him. "Yeah but… but I'm your biggest."

* * *

Gosalyn yawned, stretching her arms out over the second-hand textbooks she had piled around her. The previous evening had been a quiet and tense one, and besides Drake making sure she would get her schoolwork done for the day, they hadn't spoken all night. Drake had poured himself over his old laptop all night, looking for jobs, reading scripts, maybe even doing a little writing, and Gosalyn had kept herself occupied with her schoolwork and some quiet TV watching on her shattered smartphone.

Now, after the restless night, she was trying to get a jumpstart on her homework, hoping that her efforts might help sooth her dad's temper. Apologizes had never been her forte; for all his emotional dumbness, Drake was always better at them than she was. While he could voice them easily enough, and had learned to initiate the uncomfortable emotional talks a long time ago, despite his own hatred of them, Gosalyn usually tried to express her remorse through her actions. She hated talking about her feelings. And often couldn't. Though it was never clear if her Dad picked up on her message, it was the best she could do.

Even the best intentions could be forgotten, however, especially when she was trying to wrestle her way through her math homework.

"Daaaaaaad!" She wailed loudly, slumping backwards in the round window seat. "How do you divide by a negative fraction? With the top part negative?"

 _"Wot?"_ Drake's head poked into the main trailer from the curtain that separated the bunks from the rest with a frown. His tooth brush was in his mouth, and he stepped to the sink, spit, rinsed, and, leaning on the cupboard, stared at her in confusion. "You don't divide by a negative numerator, you have to flip it." Having cleaned his mouth, and the sink, Drake stepped out of the thin hallway, foot hooking the rolled-up hockey net shoved in the small closet across from the sink and vanity. He kicked his foot loose and stepped forward, the rollerblade under his other foot sending him to the floor with a crash. "Ow."

"You and me both," grimaced the teen, messaging her forehead as she stretched out over the books.

Drake Mallard did three things when he and Gosalyn left St. Canard: emptied his bank account, which caused quite a distress for his banker, and bought a trailer, the first one he found that would leave enough in his pocket for his family's trip to who-knows-where. The beat up old thing was a relic from the 60s, and still had the neo yellow-green paint on the outside and the psychedelic decorations on the inside. Near the front of the trailer were two bunk beds, barely twin in size, with a fabric curtain separating them from the rest for a little privacy while the two slept or needed space from each other. Gosalyn always got the top bunk, it was her first choice. Beyond that, with just enough space for a book or pair of socks to fall, was the toilet on the left side and the shower on the right, each in their own wooden cupboards that thinned the narrow space between them to a one-duck only hallway. The toilet and closet, divided in half, were enough to equal the space of the shower, so at least it was all even. The middle of the trailer on the right side - opposite the door - was an antique fridge, kitchen countertop, a sink, and a few cabinets beside the shower, which opened up to the back of the trailer where a round table was snuggled against the round bench seat. The back wall of the trailer was frosted glass windows, and it curled around the table and bench. On the left side, after the toilet and closet, was a pile of boxes and sports equipment, and the only door. Past the door was the other end of the table and bench.

The Mallards had one dented metal chair which pulled up to the table, and an antique wooden chair which was covered in storage, and not much else. A few pots and pans, a hot plate, and electric skillet for cooking, and a small microwave for everything else stocked their cupboards, but the most copious item they had was Gosalyn's equipment for every sport from hockey to softball. Most everything could be stored easily enough, but the collapsible hockey nets, a purchase Drake had made as soon as they parked their trailer for the first time, were the exception. They didn't have a home, and the two ducks just lived around them.

Drake sighed and walked to Gosalyn, turning the dented metal chair backwards to sit on it. Gosalyn knew what was coming, and recoiled, slumping against the green floral-printed bench with a guilty expression.

"Gosalyn," Drake began, gently bookmarking and shutting the math book that sat between them and pushing it aside, "I'm sorry for what I said last night."

The teen diverted her green eyes to her lap, and Drake crossed his arms on the table.

"Gos?"

"Okay," the teen squeaked.

"I'm sorry for blowing up at you last night."

"I know," she mumbled.

"You know I try to give you freedom and space, right?"

"Yeah."

"And you know we don't helicopter over each other, right?"

"Sure."

Drake sighed again, and Gosalyn immediately wilted. She hated that she couldn't she be better at talking to her dad about these things like a normal teenager. They both knew it was hard enough for Drake to begin with, but she never seemed to make it any easier for him, no matter how bad she felt about it.

 _"You_ know that _I_ know that you don't like being punished, right? I know it seems permanent to you, but I know you know better, and are trying really hard to change it. Did you know that I see you trying?"

"No … do you really?"

"I do." Standing, Drake scooted onto the bench next to Gosalyn and playfully poked her side. "And you know that I'll never stop loving you or stop being proud of you, right?"

"Yeah – Dad! Yeah, yeah - I know it! Haha!"

"Well then you know furthermore that I'm proud of you for scaring away those bullies, right?"

"Yeah – yeah, Dad! Yeah, I know!"

"Good," the mallard smiled, stopping his poking and flipping her ponytail. "No more trespassing or getting arrested, alright?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"And you'll stay away from the Studio, yes?"

Stumped, Gosalyn frowned up at her dad, the older Mallard cutting her off before she could protest.

"Gosalyn, I'm serious. Stay away from the Studio. And all things _Darkwing Duck_ related. Do I make myself clear _this time_?"

"Okay… I guess."

"Good, then it's your turn."

"Rats," she groaned, sitting up in the seat and curling her legs under her. "Here goes…. I know I shouldn't have… left?"

Drake shook his head with practiced patience.

"Oh… what did you say last night…? Oh!" Sitting up, Gosalyn faced her dad, who leaned one arm over the back of the seat to open up to her. "You know I know better than to trespass, right?"

He nodded.

"Dad!"

"Okay, okay, yes, I know," he held his hands up in surrender.

"Good. Um, you know I know better than to get in fights, right? Because I didn't! I just scared them off!"

"I noticed," he poked the edge of her bill, "and I do know that."

" _Dad!_ … And you know that I… that I don't like being picked up by the police all the time and … And I don't like you … I don't like being in trouble."

"I know that," Drake nodded.

"Then you know that I'm … I don't like it and I don't like making you mad or scared. And I … I'm sorry I did? I'm sorry I did. Made you mad. And scared. And got in trouble."

"I do know that." Brushing her bangs from her face, Drake smiled at her. "And I know that you don't mean to, and are trying really hard to get better. And I'm very proud of you for that. You know that, don't you?"

"I do… I love you Dad," Gosalyn blushed, leaping into Drake's open arms.

"I love you too, Gossy. What do you think needs to happen now?"

The teen pulled back, rolling her eyes back in thought. "Uuuuuum, maybe home arrest for the rest of the week?"

"Fair enough," Drake offered his hand for a shake. "And homework done before lunch for the rest of the week too."

"Fine," she sighed, shaking the hand.

"Welp, now that the sucky-parts of parenting are out of the way…" Hopping off the seat, Drake grabbed his jacket from the hook near the door.

"Dad!" Gosalyn cried, offended.

"Kidding! Anyway, now that that's done, I'm heading out to grab some 'move in grub', and was wondering if _you_ , Miss House Arrest, would like to join me."

"You mean it?" the teen smiled, quickly stacking her school books and dropping them on the seat next to her. "Do I ever!" Hurrying after her dad, Gosalyn snatched her letterman off the hook near the door and slammed it closed behind her.

* * *

The shopping center, a chain they had never been to, had great overhead music going for it if nothing else. Dancing and singing to the classic rock down the aisles, the two collected their groceries, which mainly consisted of Gosalyn putting her favorites in the cart and Drake putting them back on the shelves. Once in a while, however, he'd shrug and let her keep something, because everyone deserves a special treat every now and then. Gosalyn was in charge of keeping track of the prices of everything they collected, which meant taking pictures of them. At the checkout, they put their heads together to whittle away at their haul, eventually leaving with everything they would need for their celebratory meal, and something to hold them over until the next paycheck, all while staying, somehow, in budget. Despite all the returned groceries, it was a success in Gosalyn's eyes, so she insisted on treating them both to the closest StarDucks, which Drake never turned down.

* * *

While Drake sipped on his coffee, Gosalyn scratched her head, scribbling furiously over her math problem on the coffee shop's napkins. So far they hadn't been recognized by anyone, not that Gosalyn would have noticed, but Drake did let her give her name for their orders instead of his own. He wasn't exactly expecting trouble, but he and the city had an unique relationship that Gosalyn might never appreciate, so he kept his ears and eyes open for any trouble. But the streets downtown had been emptier and quieter than he ever imagined St. Canard could be, and it was unnerving. Even the old "Fresh Takes" grocery store had empty shelves and barely any fresh produce to speak of, its old claim to fame in the water-logged city. At least there was a _Starducks_ left, one of the last marks of St. Canard's golden age left. Drake even remembered when it came to town. Darkwing has been asked to cut the ribbon at Town Hall that opened the new business district where more recognizable national chains had out-bought the local mom-and-pop places. It hurt the local folks, but the wave of tourists and new business-people certainly didn't complain. The _Starducks_ even had a picture of the event framed in some dusty old corner of the restaurant behind a plastic plant, and Drake tried not to stare at it too long.

His own plastic smile and puffed up chest gave made him shiver.

After a few moments of her wheels turning, Gosalyn squawked in triumph, pulling her father from his thoughts and back into the quiet coffee shop. He blinked as she handed the napkin to him triumphantly, presenting it under his bill with a smirk. He grinned himself and took the napkin. After just a brief scan, however, he pulled his red pen from his jacket, and clicked it open.

"Aaaaah rats," Gosalyn whined, snatching her smoothie off the table and flopping back into her seat. She slurped unhappily while Drake marked on the equation and handed it back after a few scribbles.

"You forgot a parenthesis," he smiled and the teen yanking the napkin from him.

"What?! Where?!" her eyes finding the mistake, thanks to his generous scribbling, she threw it back on the table with a snarl. "Double rats! I'm never going to get it!"

Drake finished his long slurp of his drink, swallowing with a happy grin and leaning on his elbows. "Yes, you will, you just have to remember your playbook."

"News flash, Dad," she narrowed her eyes at him, "you can't use sports metaphors to solve _everything_ in life."

"Well, I tried," the mallard shrugged, sitting back in his chair and mixing his coffee with his straw. Glancing over his shoulder, Gosalyn choked on her smoothie suddenly, coughing and vaulting onto the table. "Slow down there, Gonzales," the older Mallard frowned at her, sitting up a little straighter.

"Speaking of news flashes," she wiped her bill, pointing at the television that hung in the shop's counter. Drake turned to it, a frown shadowing his face.

"Hey," he called to someone behind the counter, "excuse me? Could we turn that up some, please? Thank you." Gosalyn stood quickly and followed her dad towards the TV, stopping next to him.

 _"…considering yesterday's... incident, we are increasing security at DW Studios effective immediately."_

Apparently, St. Canard's favorite news station was holding a personal interview with a blond-haired ferret in a cheap suit, sporting a smug grin. _Darkwing Duck_ flashed across the screen in big letters, and Portia Featherly smiled at her victim, something in her eyes sparkling.

"Who's this clown?" Gosalyn asked and Drake crossed his arms.

"Officer Slick Adder," he identified the ferret on screen, who was practically winking at the interviewing duck. "Well, apparently he's 'Senior Detective', now. Met him a long time ago. Wasn't a fan, either of us. And that's you they're talking about, young lady."

"Wow," she smiled up at the TV, "keen gear!"

"No, it's not! Now hush!"

 _"Has the incident at all affected the case, Senior Detective?"_ Featherly asked, and Drake noted how Adder seemed to sit up a little straighter at the title. He grimaced involuntarily. Adder was always a character who believed he was worth everything the world was failing to give him, and was pretty impatient in receiving it. But apparently he had set his ego aside long enough to become a detective. And senior detective at that.

Oxford's recruitment levels must have been down lately.

 _"…We_ are _pursuing a few new leads in the investigation, unconnected to yesterday's incident, but will not be disclosing their identities at this time. Sorry, Miss Featherly."_

"How do you know all these people?" Gosalyn slurped at her smoothie and glanced at her dad.

"Uh," Drake blinked, his mind faltering for a moment in recalling a single specific memory he shared with the rodent. But he could feel a specific memory knocking, but seemed to have forgotten which door to open. "I've... when you live and work in one place your whole life, you tend to know people," he stumbled while combing down his head fathers, but a sneaking glance at Gosalyn next to him told him that she was, at least, convinced. "Now hush!"

"But—"

"Hush!"

"Now wait a minute! If he's just a Detective, why is he holding this personal interview and not a full press conference? And shouldn't the actual Chief of Police be doing this instead?"

"Gosalyn! Hush!"

In the middle of Drake scolding his daughter, the story ended, cutting back a young, redheaded dog lady, who shared the screen with Featherly. The young lady had long red hair and bangs that waterfalled over her shoulders and face, and silver piercings in her ears.

"Oh great, now we missed it," the mallard grumbled, motioning to the TV. "Thanks, Gos."

"Who is that?" the teen motioned to it, and her and her father read the nameplate. "Roxanne Rose Dane?"

"She must be new," sighed Drake as he returned to their table. The story had ended and he hadn't learned anything about the official investigation. And something was buzzing at the back of his head now, and he couldn't quite place what it was. "You don't normally see Featherly share the screen with anyone. Actually, you never see it."

 _"That was Detective Slick Adder,"_ the redhead smiled, something about her soft and creamy voice immediately making Gosalyn smile. Roxanne was young, eager, and sounded kind, unlike the stiffly grinning, wrinkle-faced duck next to her. Featherly's forced sign of companionship made the creases at the corners of her eyes somehow worse, beyond even the help of her heavy make up.

 _"That was_ Senior _Detective Slick Adder,"_ she bit with a smile in Roxanne's direction, _"Miss Dane. It's best not to forget the proper titles of your guests,_ my dear _."_

 _"Uh-of course."_ Roxanne's smile faltered, a small blush replacing it. Gosalyn recrossed her arms and scowled, quite unhappy with Featherly for completely unnecessarily humiliating the poor girl. But Roxanne seemed to be taking it in stride, and when Featherly refused to continue the story, she whimpered at her strongest apology. _"My apologies. Senior Detective Slick Adder, thank you for that exclusive interview. Though Detective Adder is reluctant—"_

 _"Though Senior Detective Adder is reluctant to share any additional information on the new suspects…"_

"Wow," Gosalln whistled, "Featherly is green in several ways, it seems."

 _"… this channel has acquired exclusive footage from the day of the fire just a few days ago, of what appears to be a suspicious individual sneaking into the old DW Studio just minutes before the fire broke out."_

"Finally," the teen heard her dad huff from behind her, " _someone_ in this town knows how to run an investigation."

"Uh, Dad?" she muttered, twisting around to catch his attention. The mallard, frowning at her, glanced to the TV and choked on his coffee.

The "exclusive footage" was a snapshot of an individual who bore an uncanny resemblance to Darkwing Duck himself, over-sized bill and purple suit and all, sneaking into the old studio.

 _"This channel has confirmed that this individual is none other than washed-up_ Darkwing Duck _leading actor and leading writer - Drake Mallard. Whom, according to alleged reports, has just recently returned to St. Canard."_

Frozen on the spot, Drake stared at the screen.

"Hehe," Gosalyn shrugged, "too bad someone in this town knows how to run an investigation."


	4. St Canard's Finest

The car windows rattled as Drake slammed the door shut, storming around it as Gosalyn followed with a roll of her eyes.

"I don't _believe_ this! Do people _seriously_ think I would break into and then try to burn DW Studio? I wasn't even St. Canard when the fire happened! I was in Spoonerville! With you! MOPPING!"

" _I_ know that, Dad," Gosalyn circled around to the car's trunk that Drake had ripped open, grabbing an armful of groceries while he juggled his own bags and the keys to the trailer, trying to unlock it. "And _you_ know that, but clearly no one else does!"

Pausing, Drake faced her briefly. "I don't get it. Who would want to frame _me_ for arson?" The door squeaked open, and Drake shouldered it open, hauling his bags inside. Poking his head back out, startling the teen that was climbing up the steps, he added, "...And _why_?"

Gosalyn squeezed past him and crossed the small trailer, dumping her bags on the counter. He watched, leaning one hand on the door-frame, ankles crossed, keys jingling as he tapped his bill.

"I know the show didn't end on the best terms, but this? Five years later?"

The two passed as he moved to unpack the pile, Gosalyn getting to the door. Yelping suddenly, she slammed it shut.

"Gosalyn!" Drake frowned at her, "we've still got groceries left!"

"I know that, Dad!" Charging her father suddenly, Gosalyn grabbed his jacket by the fistfuls, pinning him against the counter. "But, uh – may – maybe we should just forget about them! They'll be fine for the night, right?"

Yanking her hands off him, Drake frowned at her, putting his hands on his hips with a cross expression. " _What_ has gotten into you? We are _not_ wasting groceries!"

"Uh – aha!" Sprinting to the table, Gosalyn yanked her math book from the pile, shoving it in Drake's hands. "I – I think I got this whole math thing now, Dad! You should _really_ show it to me _before I forget_!"

"Gosalyn Julifeather Cavanary Mallard!" With one shove, Drake put some distance between them. "We certainly aren't wasting perfectly good food and money on a silly math problem!" Before she could stop him, Drake stomped to the door, throwing it open. A tazer-gun was immediately in his face. Police officers, all wearing their SWAT armor, surrounded the trailer with their SUVs and helicopters, shouting at the residents as a blinding spotlight covered the door.

 _"Drake Mallard! We've got the place surrounded! Come out with your hands up!"_

"You know what," Drake giggled nervously, "I changed my mind! Forget the groceries, math _is_ more important!"

With a yelp, the mallard was seized by his collar and yanked out of the trailer, Gosalyn calling for him and chasing him to the door.

"Unhand me!" he protested, the officers throwing him down and pinning him on the gravel driveway. "I didn't do anything!"

"DAD!" Gosalyn cried, Drake twisting around and trying to catch a glimpse of her, one officer planting a knee in his back.

"Gos! Don't touch her!"

The teen screamed as the officers charged her, grabbing the door frame with two hands and kangaroo kicking them back down the steps and onto the gravel. "Alright!" she pumped one fist in celebration, yelping when more officers surrounded her, darting back into the trailer. The cops climbed the steps and shouldered their way through it, flooding inside. The unsteady trailer rocked back and forth as the teen battled them, finally being thrown on the ground next to her dad among a shower of demands and curses from the redhead.

"Let go of her!" demanded Drake, struggling under the vice-grip on his arms. "She's just a kid!"

"What do you want with us, anyway?" the teen growled. "We're just a bunch of deadbeats!"

Pausing his struggle, Drake blinked at her. "'Deadbeats', Gosalyn? Really?"

She shrugged, Drake yelping as someone kicked a spray of gravel and dust into his face.

"Oh, I'm terribly sorry," sneered Senior Detective Slick Adder, glaring triumphantly down at Drake. The mallard glared up at the blond ferret, giving his arms another quick shake of a struggle. "We got an anonymous tip that we could find you and your accomplice here, you little firebugs. Looks like our source was right."

"We had nothing to do with that fire!" Drake protested, rolling his shoulders, desperate to relieve the pressure from the knee planted between them. "I'm being framed, and Gosalyn is in no way related to the whole thing!"

"But isn't she?" Slick knelt in Drake's face. "My, how quick a loving parent is to forget their only child's transgressions." Slick glanced at Gosalyn. "You must have a lot of practice."

While Drake glared up at the laughing Slick, both Mallards were yanked to their feet and shoved in the direction of the patrol cars. They voiced their protests, Gosalyn insisting she wasn't the arson and Drake demanding that they leave her alone.

"It's okay, Dad," Gosalyn called, after being shoved against a patrol car, her voice shaking and another round of hyper-ventilation setting in. "We-we'll get out of this! We're innocent!"

"They won't hurt you, Gosalyn," Drake replied, being flattened against the car himself while they patted him down. "I swear they won't."

But he had his doubts.

* * *

The interrogation room was stuffy, smelly, and overcrowded, with Drake handcuffed to one side of the table and two oversized cops crowded around the other. They laughed at him again, Drake grinding his teeth together, his fists in tight knots.

"I told you, _Officers_ ," he growled at the cadets, "we weren't even in the city! We were both in Spoonerville! Call my old boss, he'll tell you I was at work all day!"

"Yes, yes, Mr. Darkwing," the cops scoffed, "we even checked with Bushroot and Quackerjack! And they said the same thing!"

The two howled again, one beating his fist on the table, which jolted, knocking Drake around who was still fastened tightly to it.

"Please," he grunted, shifting his chair back under him, "stop calling me that. Darkwing Duck was a character I played on a television show! My name is Drake, Drake Mallard!"

"No, no, you're right," the other cop nodded, "you do deserve a little more respect. After all, you're the terror that splats in the night!"

Their uproarious laughter filling the room, and Drake screwed his eyes shut. His temper was boiling over, and if he held it back anymore, there would be permanent damage. But for Gosalyn, he forced himself to keep breathing steadily.

The last he had seen of her, she had collapsed against him in the back of the patrol car, her father doing his best to talk her out of the panic attack. Though the officers in the car, including Slick, had refused to grant her any kind of medical attention, Drake was a professional at anchoring his daughter, and by the time they reached the station she was calmed out of the spell and equipped with some quick instructions from her dad in case they were separated once they got inside.

Of course, they had been, but Gosalyn had promised to tell the cops if she needed help again. But still, he was wary.

"Where is my daughter? When can I speak with her? Is she still okay?"

"I don't know," one cop shrugged, "probably half way to juvie by now."

"WHAT?!" Drake cried, leaping to his feet. The chair clattered sideways behind him.

"Oh yeah, she's got quite a record," the other replied with a nonchalant shrug. "Why, just the other day we caught her sneaking around in the studio messing with stuff and leaving her fingerprints all over the place."

"That had nothing to do with -!"

"Now, what was she doing in there?" the slightly larger cop asked, leaning on the table so he was eye level with the enraged mallard. "Looking for another spot to start the next fire? Finishing the job? Or maybe she's just got a little fire-centered habit daddy likes her keeping under wraps. It might explain why you two are moving constantly. I mean, we both know the kind that she is: trouble maker. Problem child. Future delinquent. _Orphan_."

That was the final straw. Drake reared back and smashed his forehead into the center of the officer's face, leaping as far as he could from the table as the officer stumbled in the opposite direction with a wail of pain. "MY DAUGHTER IS NO PROBLEM CHILD!" the duck roared. Stunned, his buddy gripping his bleeding nose, the other officer charged around the table and at Drake, who swung the metal chair between them and kicked it, the metal clattering painfully into the cop. Dodging the officer's grab at him, Drake leaped onto the table, kicked the bloodied cop off of it, and knelt low, waiting for either of them to come at him. "I'M THE ONE THIS CITY HATES! I'M THE ONE YOU WANT! GOSALYN HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS, AND IF YOU BLUBBERING IDIOTS THINK YOU'LL GET AWAY WITH PINNING EVEN ONE SUSPICION ON HER HEAD-!"

"DAD!"

Stunned, Drake spun around to face the door, yanking on the handcuffs. "Gosalyn?!"

From behind, the cop grabbed the duck in a choke hold, wrestling the kicking mallard off the table and flattening him across it, one elbow digging into the center of Drake's back. Drake kicked and wiggled, wheezing as the officer leaned his weight onto the smaller duck and effectively crushed him.

"Let him go!" Gosalyn screamed from the doorway, bloody-nose-officer grabbing her before she could charge at his partner.

"LET GO OF HER!" Drake wheezed, trying to shift the weight to breathe more easily. Or breathe at all, the mammoth of a cop still stretching him out across the table. "Gaah!"

"What the H-E-Double-hockey-sticks is going on in here?!" the teen demanded, Drake gasping.

"Gosalyn!"

"She's right," Chief Oxford Bully snarled, his deep voice booming out over the chaos and reverberating off the concrete walls. Stepping into the open door frame behind the teen, he glaring at his two officers. All at once, the commotion and activity in the room froze, Drake's wheezing breaths the only sound, accompanied by the jingle of the handcuffs as he wiggled. Bully stretched to his full height, refusing to drop his gaze from the officer on top of Drake. "Let Mr. Mallard go, Cadet. NOW!"

"But chief," Bloody-nose-officer argued, continuing to wrestle with Gosalyn, "he attacked us!"

Growling, Gosalyn drove herself into the officer, headfirst, and while he was double over, slipped past him. Bully grabbed the cop before he could grab the teen.

"I said NOW!"

Ignoring Bully, Gosalyn leaped onto the table and glared down at the officer that was crushing her father, who had become alarmingly still. Her tall shadow loomed over them both.

 **"Let my dad go."**

Snarling, the officer shoved off Drake, who coughed and wheezed, collapsing to the floor and rattling the handcuffs as he yanked on them.

"Dad!" Gosalyn yelped, leaping down and helping the sputtering duck into his chair.

"Gos-lyn," he coughed, "they – they said they shipped you out!"

"What?" frowned the teen, turning to glare at the officers.

"What?" Bully snarled, also turning on them.

"He attacked us," the larger officer argued.

"Bull-hockey!" Drake coughed, cradling his chest with his elbows. He grunted and tried to take some deep breaths to calm himself, Gosalyn putting her hands on him. "They told me they shipped Gos out, Oxford! That – that they pinned her as the arson!"

"They did?" Gosalyn whimpered, her dad meeting her eyes.

"We did no such thing," one cop replied.

"Oh, shove it up your bill, Ducks-a-lot," snapped the furious teen, turning to the chief. "Check the video, Chief! And check our alibis while you're at it _since these two certainly didn't!_ We weren't anywhere close to St. Canard when the fire happened!"

"I already have," Bully crossed his massive arms, aiming a reassuring look at the two ducks. "And they check out. You are both free to go. Unlock the handcuffs, Cadet."

The officer didn't move and Drake tensed, glaring intently at him. Seeing how her dad tensed, Gosalyn stepped closer, crossing her arms and daring the officer to _try_ to touch her dad again.

"If I have to ask you again, your badge is mine."

Grumbling, the officer did so. Drake rubbed his aching, well, everything, before Gosalyn leapt into his arms. She buried her face in his tee shirt and practically smothered him.

"Are you okay, Gossy?" he asked, pulling her back to look her over, brushing her messy hair out of her face. Gosalyn slapped the hands aside and buried her face in his shoulder again.

"I was scared they _would_ ship me out, Dad," she muttered, and Drake wrapped his arms around her, hugging her close.

"Just breathe, baby."

"They said you were already under arrest!"

"Breath, Gosalyn."

"And they had my fingerprints - and - and -!"

"I wasn't going to go anywhere without you, or let anyone take you away from me," he replied, pulling Gosalyn back and grabbing her eyes in his own. Gosalyn offered a trembling smile, peeling on of Drake's hands off her face and hold it tightly against her chest. Drake held her face with his other hand and held her scared green eyes in his own. "Well, not without a fight. I told you that."

Gosalyn searched him for a minute, finally nodding and hugging him again. Patting her head, he calmed her, fully aware of the glare he was getting from the cadets.

"Drake, Gosalyn," Bully addressed softly, motioning out of the room. Pulling apart from Gosalyn, Drake nodded and stood with a small grunt, Gosalyn steadying him. Bully watched them and stepped out of the door frame as they neared, giving them room. The group took note of how the older Mallard put himself between the cops and his daughter, who stuck her tongue out at them as they passed.

Outside, Gosalyn spun around and leaped in front of Drake, who slouched against the wall with a heavy groan. His ribs would be feeling the sharp edge of the table for a few days, and he was pretty sure the cop had nearly pulled an arm out of socket when he wrestled Drake off the table. But, he scanned over Gosalyn again, scooping her bangs from her scared green eyes, she seemed unharmed, and Bully certainly wasn't going to let anyone give them any trouble again.

Watching her dad carefully, Gosalyn asked him, "why didn't you tell me you knew Chief Bully?"

"I, uh," glancing up at Bully, Drake shrugged his shoulders, "figured you wouldn't remember me."

"Not remember you, Drake Mallard?" Bully chuckled, his round shoulders relaxing into their more common slump.

Shrugging, Drake pushed himself off the wall with a slight grimace and collected his things from the evidence box another officer offered him. "I mean, I know I did those spots and that – charity ball or whatever that was, but that was a long time ago."

"Oh yes," nodded Bully, "those commercials and charity drives saved, not only my job, but the jobs of a lot of good people in this department."

Tossing Gosalyn an embarrassed look, Drake carefully pulled his jacket on and grinned shyly up at Bully. "Gee, I didn't think it helped that much."

"They certainly did," Bully motioned for them to follow him, which Gosalyn did, "but _I_ was thinking more about High School."

"High School?" Gosalyn frowned, putting her hands on her hips. "Gee whiz Dad, do you know everyone in this town from high school?"

Still standing back by the interrogation room, already several steps behind them, Drake stared at the two, his brows bent in deep, fearful confusion. He was frozen still for a moment, enough for Gosalyn to take a half-step back to him.

"...Dad?"

"You were at High School?" he blinked, eyes drifting into an empty space.

Bully paused and glanced at Gosalyn, who watched her dad with intense worry. "I was," the bull replied, stepping back to Drake, who was busy searching nothing. "We were partners in most every class, Drake. Mr. Mulligan kicked us both out of band freshman year."

"Oh…" blushed the mallard, ducking his head and swiftly moving ahead of them and to Bully's office, his hands stuffed in his pockets. He paused halfway, however, glaring at Senior Detective Slick Adder, who grinned at him, escorting three shady looking beagles to some back room of the station. "…yeah, of course. Mr. Mulligan."

Gosalyn and Bully exchanged a worried look.

"To answer your question, Gosalyn," the chief changed the topic quickly, entering the office after the other two and closing the door, "most everyone who went to St. Canard High ended up staying in St. Canard. That's how the city was back then, for the most part. But right now," Bully crossed behind Drake and to his desk, "I think this department owes you both a profound apology."

"Not the whole department," Drake corrected, sighing out whatever had been troubling him just a second ago, "just 'Senior Detective Slick Adder'. When, by the way, did he make it to Senior Detective? Last I remember he was just 'over-eager upstart'."

"It took a long while," Bully lowered himself into his chair with a heavy sigh, "especially after the city collapsed. Most everyone blamed the Police Department for the spike in crime and unrest."

"Well that's not fair," Gosalyn grumbled, leaping onto one of the guest chairs lined up in front of Bully's desk. "It wasn't your fault."

"But he certainly seems to be enjoying the title all the same," Drake muttered, pressing his knuckle to the lip of his bill. "We all saw it."

"We certainly did," Bully stiffened, leaning back in his chair.

"And what's with him running that 'exclusive interview', anyway?" asked Gosalyn. " _And_ running the arrest on us? The helicopters were pretty cool, but even _I_ thought it was a little over the top."

"Adder was, admittedly, running things outside of his own jurisdiction," Bully confessed. "No matter how many warnings I've given him in the past about this sort of behavior."

"Oxford," Drake crossed his arms, "that guy has got both your SWAT team _and_ your cadets in registration _and_ your junior detectives in interrogation eating out of his hand. I don't want to give unwarranted advice…"

"Then don't, please," Bully sighed. "This city has changed, Drake, since you left. It's been a long, hard decline, and try as I might, my forces have been powerless to stop it. I guess I've been waiting for something like this to happen for a long, long time."

"But how is he doing it?" asked Drake, finally leaving his place by the door and leaning on the corner of the desk. "Does he have that much pull in the department?"

"He certainly has pull coming from somewhere," the bull nodded, "but, and I feel I can trust you both with this, I'm not entirely sure where it's coming from."

"Wait a minute, what does that mean for us?" the teen frowned, scooting to the edge of her seat. "He's got the whole department thinking we're the top two winners on _Crime's Most Wanted_!"

"That news cast from this afternoon certainly didn't help," Drake muttered, resuming his thinking pose.

"Do you think they can be related?" Bully asked, leaning towards the duck.

"You're asking Dad?" Gosalyn almost chuckled, glancing between the two. "But _you're_ the chief of police."

"And your father," Bully motioned to Drake, who was aiming an offended glare at his daughter, "is one of the most observant and clever mystery solvers I have ever met. He wrote them for years, long before that TV show of his, and we still use some of them in our cadet training."

"Keen gear!" gasped Gosalyn, looking up at her dad. "Really? You never told me!"

"I was chief writer for _Darkwing_ for the first season or so," he shrugged, "and I do love a good mystery. But," he pointed at Bully quickly, "I'm _no_ chief of police!"

"Yes _buuuut_ ," Bully lead, giving Drake a pleading look, "all thing considered… Drake, please."

Drake glared at him for a minute, finally tossing his hands in the air.

" _Buuuut_ , my advice, Bully, _if you really want it:_ keep close tabs on your department's interaction with the local news, especially Featherly, and who is doing so. It's always the reporters in cases like this, and your Senior Detective could very well be in bed with her."

Gosalyn watched her dad and Bully stand and move back to the door, jumping up quickly and following.

"Ew! Dad!"

Drake rolled his eyes as he stood by the door, Bully joining him. "Not literally! But, like I said, Oxford, I'm no chief of police. I'm just a hobbyist."

"Preposterous," Bully smiled, shaking Drake's hand. "Someday, somehow, I'll get you on the force."

"You've been saying that since junior-high."

A smile stretched across his face, and something in Bully relaxed. "And I've meant it long before that. As friends, Drake, and because you have your own family now, I will keep an eye out for you, for you both. Especially with everything that's happened."

"Thank you, Oxford," Drake put his hands on Gosalyn's shoulders. "You were always the one of the biggest reasons I came back to St. Canard after school, you know. Still are. And the single reason Darkwing was a detective."

Bully laughed, a good, deep laugh that shook his shoulders and made the two Mallards smile, especially Gosalyn. "I always saw more of myself in that 'Taurus Bulba' character of yours."

Gosalyn's jaw dropped, the girl staring at the chief with bulging eyes.

"Mere matter of coincidence," Drake shrugged, leading Gosalyn out the door. "Come along dear, let's let these wonderful monkeys get back to their circus." Pausing halfway through the main office, he waved again to the Chief, who waved back. "We really must _never_ do this again, Oxford! Tootles!"

"DAD!" Gosalyn finally blinked, leaping ahead of her dad and facing him as they came to the front doors of the building. "He was – that guy – Taurus-!"

"Gosalyn," Drake clicked his tongue, pushing on the front door, "we really must work on your habit of staring at others, it's gotten much too out of hand. And your language, by the way."

"Drake Mallard!" "Mr. Mallard!" "Mr. Mallard, over here!" "Mr. Mallard!"

Suddenly, as the two stepped through the front doors, what seemed like dozens of news reporters swarmed them, cameras flashing and mics being shoved into their faces. Drake covered himself instinctively and pushed Gosalyn behind him as the reporters circled them.

"What's your involvement with the fires?" "Why return after all these years?" "Do you have any comment on-?" "What are your thoughts concerning-?" "Will Chief Bully be pressing charges?" "How is your daughter involved in all of this?"

"ENOUGH!" Drake screamed, the group finally going silent. "Yes, see? Thank you! Now that you lecturing leeches have had your fun, my daughter and I are going home to forget about this whole thing!"

"Mr. Mallard! Portia Featherly, St. Canard News!" Featherly pushed her way into Drake's face, he and Gosalyn rolling their eyes in unison. "How do you plan to defend yourself against the charges of arson, given this channel's exclusive evidence?"

"I don't know where you're getting your 'evidence', Featherly," Drake mumbled, "actually, I've been wondering that for years, but you should really fire them, and no, that was not a pun. And yes, you _can_ quote me on that. St. Canard's finest brought me in for questioning, nothing more. Now that my alibi has cleared, I've been dropped from the investigation and they've moved on to bigger, _legitimate_ suspects, simple as that."

"So, you deny this proof…" Feathery shoved the photo of his look-alike outside the studio in Drake's face, "…that you were at the DW Studio the night of the fire?"

"Lady," Drake pushed the picture away with a small chuckle, "on your way home tonight pick up a dictionary. Any old kind will do. When we do, flip to 'proof', it should be somewhere between 'pronoun' and 'propaganda', and take a nice long read. Then ask yourself: does a single picture that captures a likeness of an individual at one spot when said individual was clearly and realistically at an entirely different spot really qualify?"

"The answer will shock you!" Gosalyn piped up.

Featherly glared at them, speaking through gritted teeth and a forced smile. "So, you deny it?"

"Featherly, ladies and gentlemen of the press, let me put it another way: why, _in all that is sane and natural in this world,_ would I possibly _ever_ want to set fire to that studio? I dedicated years of my life, my daughter's life, and the lives of the crew and cast to that studio, trying our hardest to make something great. And at the end of the day, I still believed that we did. Darkwing Duck was a hero to a lot of kids out there, and I'm sick and tired people kicking dirt on that just because of some bad publicity five years later. Darkwing was a hero, just leave it at that and let him rest in peace."

"Well," Featherly smiled and produced a small bundle of papers from her pocket, "despite those … _touching_ words, claims have recently surfaced about just what those many years of dedication really looked like, Mr. Mallard, and according to my exclusive source, those actors and crew members you spoke so highly of all suffered at your hands, blaming the show's cancellation to an, and I'm quoting here, 'over-inflated and unsatisfied arrogance and unrealized hero complex within Drake Mallard himself, which reflected through in his harsh treatment and sometimes relentless emotional and mental bullying of actors and crew members alike'. Any comments on _that_ , Mr. Mallard?"

Stunned, Drake blinked, coming to life with a shake of his head. "Give me that!" he snapped, tearing the papers from Featherly's hands, him and Gosalyn crowding close to read it. "Where did you get this?"

"Those are the claims, Mr. Mallard," Featherly replied, snatching the bundle back. "Any comments?"

Drake yelped as the reporters closed in on him and Gosalyn again, whom he threw his arms over to shield. Questions flew at them from all sides, and Drake finally seized the closest mic, screaming into it.

"Yeah, I've got a comment: WE ARE BOTH GOING HOME!"

With a few shoves, Drake cleared a path through, pulling Gosalyn closely after him.

"You heard it here first," Featherly reported to her camera, "Drake Mallard failed to deny any of the accusations that this channel just brought you as a news exclusive. We will have to wait and see just what else comes to light as the 'terror that flaps in the night' finally ends. Back to you, _Dame_."


	5. St Canard is Growing

The latest episode of _Grease Monkeys_ ended, and Gosalyn pulled the headphones off her head, hearing that their new neighbors in the crummy hotel room had finally stopped yelling at them and trying to bash their door down. She glanced that way and caught sight of her dad, frowning in worry at that sight.

Drake was sitting in the center of the other dusty motel room bed, between her and the door, the lights in the room casting a green light on his white feathers. Or maybe he had started to turn green, working himself up to getting sick. It wouldn't be the first time. Completely unaware of her movement, he was crossed legged, his elbows resting on his knees, and his large bill resting in his hands. His eyes stared intently at nothing, and he scowled, thinking of plenty of things all at once, and if Gosalyn had to guess, none of them were pleasant.

What Chief Bully had said about her father being a brilliant detective made a lot of things about the mallard make sense in Gosalyn's eyes. Her thirst for action and physical activity had always been matched by his thirst for discovery and intellectual stimulation. While Gosalyn put hockey sticks and roller blades on her birthday wish list, Drake was more than happy to bury himself in mystery novel after mystery novel, sometimes new ones and sometimes old ones. Sometimes, he'd branch out into scientific textbooks that Gosalyn had always assumed was far beyond his understanding. He just read them because it made him look smarter. But sometimes, she would catch him reading old rejected cartoon scripts, or combing through scrapped TV concepts. Her dad was a puzzle solver and a writer, and had an unhealthy knack for diving so deep into a mystery he sometimes forgot which way was up. And this current mystery centered around him and his family, so there was no telling how turned around he was at the moment.

Their trip from the police department had not been pleasant. Past the gang of snappy reporters had been a mob of unhappy citizens. Drake had been recognized on the street, and the citizens of busy St. Canard had flocked to him, not for autographs, but to throw their own accusations and hurtful words at him. He'd finally called a taxi, shoved Gosalyn inside, and, after offering the driver an extra tip just to service them, asked to be taken to the nearest motel. Of course, the driver had taken them to this dump, and didn't spare his own biting questions of the duck. He pulled into the parking lot and dumped them on the curb, Drake tossing the money at him, and dragged Gosalyn to the reception desk. She recognized him as well, but had enough decency left to give them both a room for the night and even offer Gosalyn, for whom she had shown considerably more compassion, a spare charger for her phone. Then, after getting to their rooms through the gathering mob of angry motel visitors, they had both collapsed, throwing themselves onto the beds and into whatever best distracted them.

Suddenly, Gosalyn threw herself on the bed next to Drake, the movement knocking his concentration loose, and he squawked in surprise.

"Come on, Dad," she wrapped an arm around her dad's shoulders, sitting up on her knees next to him, "it's not that bad! Look on the bright side…" snatching the TV guide off the nightstand between the beds, she waved it in front of him. "At least this crummy place comes with a cable package! We don't get that at the trailer!"

Sighing, Drake took the guide gently from her hand, sliding off the bed and to his feet. "I guess so, Gos… but – Oh! I hate that it's come to this!" Drake spun around to face her, fire in his eyes.

"Here we go," Gosalyn grinned to herself, scooting around to face him and making sure she was comfortable.

Ignoring her comment, Drake continued. "On the run in my own city! This city called me 'King' once! I was what made St. Canard great! I put this stinking town on the map! And _now_ look at us! Paraded around like wild animals after the hunt! On the run from the most common of citizens like – like common criminals!"

Climbing onto the bed next to her, Drake combed her bangs out of her eyes. "I'm sorry that it's come to this, Gosalyn. I really am. I – I should have _never_ come back here! St. Canard doesn't want us here anymore! She's done everything she can to kick us out and keep us out!" Sliding back off the bed, Drake paced back and forth between the twin bunks. "It was _so obvious_ , I should have seen the signs! But, did I stay away? _Noooooo!_ Did I head the stupidly obvious warning signs and avoid all this heartbreak and betrayal? Hah! What do you take me for? A smarty-pants?" Collapsing backwards, he stretched out across the bed, grunting at his previous injuries and sighing. A moment passed as he stared up at the ceiling.

"… You done?" Gosalyn asked, leaning over him.

"Almost," Drake replied, rolling onto his stomach. "They call this a bed?" he frowned, pushing on the mattress with his hands. "I've slept on concrete floors softer than this. Anyway, hand me a pillow, wouldja?" Gosalyn did so. "Thank you." Balling it up, Drake mashed his face into it repeatedly. " _Stupid_ Drake. _Stupid_ Mallard. _Stupid_ father. _Stupid_ St. Canard. _Stupid_ Darkwing Duck! _Stupid_ studio! _Stupid_ arson! _Stupid_ Portia Featherly! _Stupid_ Oxford Bully! _Stupid_ Slick Adder! _Stupid stupid memory!_ _Stupid_ High School! _Stupid_ trailer park! _Stupid_ stinking motel with more rats than guests! _Stupid_! _STUPID_!" Releasing a long breath, he slumped over the bed with a sigh, Gosalyn laying down next to him.

"Now are you done?"

Another sigh, and he rubbed at his eyes. "I think so."

"Good!"

 _WHUMP_

"OW!" Drake squawked, bolting backwards and off the bed, the pillow Gosalyn had just whacked him with still in her hands.

"Come on sour puss," she whined, jumping to her feet and wiggling her tail with challenge. "You're getting me all down in the dumps! This here is the life!"

"How," Drake, now on the floor, leaned over the edge of the bed, gazing up at Gosalyn with an unimpressed expression, "exactly, is this 'the life'? And to which 'life' are you referring?"

Another attack by the pillow, and Drake ducked, scooting across the carpet and against the other bed.

"The kind where no one cares if we destroy the pillows or break their sheets-of-iron beds! Come on, Dad…" yanking the pillow out of the case, which she wrapped around her hand like a boxing glove, the teen smiled at down at him, "you want to get beat up again today? By a little girl no less?"

"First," Drake held up one finger, completely unfazed by his daughter's display, "you are nowhere _near_ a 'little girl', so don't even try to play that card. Second, I have _not_ been beaten up today! I was merely practicing self-restraint out of respect for the law and those whom enforce it. And third…" standing, Drake flipped up through the air and landed on the bed behind him, also disemboweling the pillows, "we really need to discuss your language, little missy. It has gotten to alarming levels."

"Shut up, gander-handle."

"Oh," Drake growled, a wide grin on his face, "that is _it_."

All at once, Drake kicked his disregarded pillow into the air, launching it at Gosalyn with another spinning kick, who deflected it with the shield she had just made out of her own pillow. Lowering it, she squawked, Drake landing on the bed next to her, hooking an arm around her shoulders in a chokehold. A move like this would have been debilitating on anyone else, but was something they practiced regularly. Using the pillow to smoother him, Gosalyn dropped to a kneel and escaped the hold, pouncing on the other bed. Drake readied his two pillows and she grabbed the spare from her new base.

"All your pillows are belong to us!" he mocked, and Gosalyn grimaced.

"Really Dad, it's no wonder the show had terrible dialogue."

"Hey! That was a topical reference!"

"Yeah," she straightened, "from like five years ago."

Considering it, Drake shrugged, dropping back into his fighting stance, Gosalyn mirroring him. "Fair."

"Well, you know what they say," circling around each other, both ducks hopped to the opposite beds at once, "all is fair in love and war. And, gander-handle, this ain't love."

"I'll say." Ripping a blanket off the bed, Drake posed with it like a cape, covering his bill and body behind the curtain. "Let's get destructive."

* * *

The front door to the trailer opened with a small grunt from Drake, shoving the clatter and mess that laid on the other side across the floor, and letting a small line of light shine through. With one more heave, he opened the door fully, flipping on the lights.

"Gee whiz," the two Mallards mumbled in unison, Gosalyn stacked behind her father on the stairs. The trailer looked like it had been turned upside down and given a tumble dry. Every item that could be moved had been, joining the other upturned and cluttered objects in a thick blanket across the tile. The cupboards were open, the fridge emptied, chairs turned over, and nearly every book the two owned, most of which were Drake's, had landed spine up, pages crumbled.

"I'd love to see the warrant of whomever did this," the mallard grumbled, beginning to collect his books and poking around the clutter to see what, if any, groceries could be saved.

"I'd love to see their backsides," Gosalyn echoed, untangling her hockey net from a few pots and pans.

The gravel driveway outside rumbled as someone pulled up next to the trailer, and Drake pulled his head out of the fridge, swapping irritated looks with his daughter. Snatching a hockey stick, he waded his way to the door, Gosalyn stopping him. She held out their iron skillet, and Drake smiled, swapping weapons with her. After the girl righted herself behind him, Drake threw the front door open, leaping onto the stairs, frying pan above his head.

"Whatever you want with us, we don't want any- _yack!"_ Drake choked in surprise at the small, kilt-wearing duck that stood before him, a smug smirk on his bearded bill. "Flintheart Goldglom?"

Gosalyn poked her head out the door past Drake, frowning curiously. "You mean _Glomgold_? _The_ Flintheart Glomgold? The ba-jillionaire?"

And she was right. The short duck was round and short, with a stringy silver beard, a green kilt, and pointed cane in his hand. Glomgold laughed a terrible, guttural sound, pointing his cane at the two Mallards. "That's right, little lassy, I'm Flintheart Glomgold, the richest duck in the world!"

"I thought you were the second richest duck in the world," Gosalyn replied flatly, crossing her arms.

"I am not!"

Lowering the fry pan while Gosalyn rolled her eyes, Drake blinked down at the duck. "First richest, second richest, whatever. What are you doing _here_? At our trailer?"

"Aye, I've come tah speak with yah, Mr. Mallard," Glomgold tilted his head to show off his beard, which he combed one hand through with practiced dignity. "I've got a little… business proposition for yah."

Blinking, Drake and Gosalyn met each other's eyes, sharing a confused scowl.

* * *

The Glomgold limo, which was decorated on each end with Glomgold flags, parked mere inches away from the curb, Drake climbing out before the chauffeur could reach the door.

"You want to buy DW Studio?" the mallard repeated, watching Gosalyn jump after him, the chauffeur helping Glomgold to the sidewalk. "Why?"

"Yeah," Gosalyn bounced next to Drake, leaning an elbow on her father's shoulders. "It's worthless. Just a pile of old junk and a little bit of ash for flavor."

"Really?" Drake scowled at Gosalyn. "But, I mean - she's not wrong."

Laughing, Glomgold locked a short arm around Drake's elbows, shaking him. "I'm not so much buying this hunka' land from you, Drakey. Think of it more as I'm doing you a _favor_."

Letting go, Glomgold waddled happily to the studio's front steps, Drake tossing Gosalyn a suspicious look, who shrugged. Turning, they followed Glomgold, who strained and struggled to push the front doors open. With a roll of his eyes, Drake stepped past Glomgold and pulled on the door, motioning for the round duck to enter first. He did, parading proudly past Drake, whom Gosalyn stepped next to. She pounded one fist into her other palm, Drake starting with fright and shoving her into the dark foyer. "Regardless, Mr. Glumgod, I'm afraid you can't buy the studio."

"Glomgold," Gosalyn corrected, crossing across the dark foyer.

"What?!" Glomgold cried, stepping away from Drake only to advance back on him, the startled Mallard taking a step backwards. "Why not?!"

" _Because_ 30% of it is owned by Scrooge McDuck and his banks," Drake replied, putting his fists on his hips. "You'll have to track whomever owns the rest of it if you really want to lay claims to this dusty wasteland."

Several feet away, Gosalyn poked a lighting crane, which collapsed with a crash and cloud of dust. "Sorry," she muttered, quickly returning to Drake's side.

"Of course, it's no wonder the other buyers aren't tripping over themselves already," he muttered, "considering the condition of this place." He aimed a sharp glare at Gosalyn. "It's practically sparkling."

"Have thar been other buyers?!" Glomgold panicked, pointing his cane at the two, who yelped.

"No," Drake pushed the cane away, "but I bet old Scrooge is more than ready to get this eyesore out of his books."

"Hah!" cheered the Scottish duck. "I'll have this studio from you yet, McDuck! You hear me! You can't own everything in the world!"

Turning so Glomgold could get back out the front doors, which he pulled and yanked on, Gosalyn leaned over Drake's shoulder, whispering to him. "No, just all the not-crappy stuff." Drake tossed her a playful glance, pushing on the door with one hand over Glomgold's head, who tumbled out.

As the short duck hurried down the sidewalk and to his limo, rubbing his hands together, Drake and Gosalyn stood on the front step, watching him go. "Like I said," Drake called, "I'd love to help you, Mr. Glimguard…"

"Glomgold."

"Whatever… But hey, I'm no businessman. I'm just a washed-up actor."

"Okay, okay, fair enough," Glomgold muttered, climbing into his limo. "I'll own this studio, Drakey, mark my words! Then we'll see who's washed-up!"

As the limo kicked up a spray of gravel, both Mallards waved after it with large grins. "Probably still you," Drake smiled. Giggling, Gosalyn stepped off the steps, Drake suddenly smacking his own cheek. "Oh, crumb-cakes!" he recited. Slowly, horror etched on her face, Gosalyn turned to him, staring up at her dad.

"... _what_?"

"I seemed to have misplaced my wallet. Gosalyn deary, won't you please help me look for it? Silly old me must have dropped it in this dark, dusty studio," he opened the door, motioning her through, "and you know how your daddy dearest's eyesight is going these days."

Stationary, Gosalyn stared at him, and Drake wilted. Since she clearly wasn't getting his drift, Drake grabbed her wrist and yanked the teen inside, pushing himself in after her and checking the parameter outside the studio before shutting the door behind them.

"Okay, Dad," she tossed her bangs from her face, "what gives?"

"I know, I know," Drake waved her concern off, turning his phone's flashlight on, "I gave you my wallet in the limo."

"That's not what I was talking about."

"Oh?" The mallard turned to her, Gosalyn padding to his side while turning her own flashlight on, handing him his wallet.

"I was talking about the acting. How _Darkwing_ ever got green-lit is becoming a bigger and bigger mystery to me."

"Hardy-har-har-har," Drake snarled, swiping his wallet from her hands and hitting her head with his phone.

"But really," Gosalyn watched her dad push further into the foyer, taking in all the details, "why tell Glomgold you dropped your wallet?"

"Gosalyn, _I_ knew you had my wallet, and _you_ knew you had my wallet, but Flinty out there didn't, nor did the half a dozen other people that I suspect are watching this studio right now."

"Wow, really? Keen gear!"

With grunt, Drake opened an "Employees Only" door near the back of the foyer that Gosalyn had completely looked over on her first visit. "Well, kind of. At least now we have the perfect excuse to come in and look around. No one is going to suspect company of Flintfart Glumguild."

"I'm beginning to think you're doing that on purpose," Gosalyn muttered, stepping by her dad, who held the door open for her.

"Hmm, you think? Would you call that, maybe, misdirection? Like how I sent Glompgrits barking up Scrooge's trees for a while instead of bothering us anymore? We've got enough attention on us as it is, we certainly don't want the second richest duck in the world attracting anymore."

Stunned, Gosalyn stopped on the spot and Drake walked past her. "Huh," she smiled, catching up in a few quick steps. "Smooth as ever, Dad."

"Where do you think Darkwing Duck got it?" asked Drake, pausing momentarily to frown at the hole Gosalyn had caused in the wall on her first visit.

"The writers?" she joked, trying to pull him away from it. Drake shook her hands off, and instead climbed through the hole and onto the set.

"Oh _suuure_ , the writers gave Darkwing Duck all this natural skill and calculating character! Someone is on top of her comedic game today, isn't she?"

"What can I say?" the teen shrugged, poking her head through the hole, "I'm at my best when breaking rules… Dad?"

Gently climbing over the rubble on the floor that surrounded the hole in the thin drywall, Gosalyn padded to her dad, who stood in the center of the old set, looking around. She watched his eyes roam over the set pieces, the cameras, the lights, the Ratcatcher, the old fake computers and machines, all the hidden entrances and exits, chasing around the ghosts that three years of filming and acting had left behind. She took his hand, which he gripped. They stood in silence for a moment, absorbing the atmosphere of the abandoned home.

"I haven't been back here since we left town," he muttered. "There's ghosts on these sets, Gosalyn, ghosts I always thought had been put to rest when everything collapsed, but I see now they've only been restless. Restlessly wandering. Five years is a long time to wonder these dusty halls." A small chuckle. "It's no wonder they're out for blood."

Having said his peace, Drake gave her hand a small tug, leading her back to the hallway they had come from.

"You know Dad," she ventured, following him to where she knew the dressing rooms were, "you never actually told me what happened."

"What happened to what?" Drake muttered, dusting off Elmo's nameplate on the door with his hand.

"To the show, Dad! To _Darkwing_! Everyone is always talking around it, but no one is talking about it! Is what Featherly said – is that all true?"

Stunned, Drake turned on her. "What?!"

"We both heard her," the teen snapped, crossing her arms. "She said you bullied the actors and the crew! Is that true? Is that why it ended?"

"Gosalyn," Drake turned to her, putting his hands on his hips, "the show ended for lots of different reasons-!"

"And you haven't told me a single one! What happened, Dad? I deserve to know!"

"Hush," Drake snapped suddenly, putting one finger on the end of her bill, head turned behind them.

"Dad!" She quietly growled, jumping with fright when a loud crash rattled the floor and ceiling around them, coming from the end of the hall.

"My old office!" squawked Drake, rushing down the hall. "The thief is in my old office!"

"Office? You mean changing room?" Gosalyn frowned after him, realizing what he had said with a yelp. "Wait, what do you mean 'thief'?!"

Stopping by the edge of the door, Drake noted that it was opened and the lock broken, holding his light at the ready. "I got a glimpse of the official report on the fire while being paraded through the police department," he whispered, Gosalyn pressing against the wall next to him. "It said that the fire had been intentionally set in the foyer, and was never designed to spread anywhere else. Plus, because of all the dangerous elements in the show, this place is mostly fire resistant. The foyer is really the only place that could catch fire, not without a heck of a lot of accelerant."

"But why would someone want to burn the foyer? There's nothing in there but old junk."

"The same reason one would send the second richest duck in the world chasing after the coattails of the first richest duck in the world." Glancing around, Drake searched for a weapon of any kind, spotting the lighting fixture Gosalyn had decorated with the old hat and cape. "What in the world is that?"

"Oh!" Gosalyn rushed to it, undressing the figure and tossing the costume pieces aside. "Nothing, haha, just a little practical joke!"

Kneeling, Drake picked up the old costume. "Your practical joke is exactly what I need."

Her bill wrinkled, Gosalyn frowned at him. "Come again?"

* * *

The office was dark but large, and in no way empty. Large enough for a full size vanity, office desk, towering file cabinets, and seemingly endless costume racks, every corner was filled with something, and the heaping piles seemed to suggest that the Drake Gosalyn had known had barely been in the room, though nothing could be further from the truth.

Inside the dark space, filled with stale old air, a few papers floated down through the air, having flown from the toppled file cabinets in the back of the room. Piles and piles of paper surrounded the metal cabinets, covering the little empty floor space with files and crinkled documents. Suddenly, the door exploded open in a cloud of smoke, drawing a startled squawk from the intruder.

"I am the terror that flaps in the night!"

Coiling through the room, the smoke reached the figure, who coughed, trying to wave it away. Poking her head into the office behind her dad, Gosalyn recognized the cough, her eyes lighting up.

"I am the eyes that watch you from the – Gosalyn!"

"Cool it," the teen replied, shoving past her dad and rushing the figure. She waved the smoke clear, revealing the teen canary from before, who waved up at them shyly from where he was splayed across the floor. "I know that asthma."

"You do?" Drake leaned over Gosalyn's shoulder, staring down at the teen. The cape was around his shoulders and over-sized fedora on his head, where they hadn't been in a very long time. "Who the heck are you?"

"YOU'RE DARKWING DUCK!" the teen squealed, clasping his hands together. "It's – it's truly an honor to meet you, sir! I'M YOUR BIGGEST FAN!" Snatching his phone off the floor, Honker flashed a quick picture of Drake, who rubbed the dots out of his eyes.

"Ooooooooh," Drake chuckled, crossing his arms and aiming a daring look at his daughter. " _This_ kid. What're you doing _back here_?"

"Yeah," repeated Gosalyn, shoving a file cabinet off the teen, who was pinned down by another larger one and stacks of papers. "And what are you doing _in_ here? Covered with these things?"

"Oh, uh, I was in here looking around, this room has always been locked before, and these things just kind of… fell."

"On top of you?!" gasped Drake, throwing papers off the cabinet and teen.

He shrugged. "I guess. It's a little hard to breath, now that you mention it."

"Good grief," muttered Gosalyn, handing her father her light. "Here, go grab the other side." Drake leaped over the cabinet and did so, both Mallards lifting it off the teen, who crawled to freedom.

"This is the greatest day of my life!" he squealed once he got to his feet, watching Drake and Gosalyn drop the cabinet. Rushing Drake, he grabbed the cape by the fistfuls, leaning over the shorter duck. "YOU'RE REALLY HIM, AREN'T YOU?! HOW DOES YOUR GAS GUN WORK? DID YOU REALLY TELL MORGANA YOUR REAL NAME? WHY DO THE VILLAINS ALL HAVE DIFFERENT BACKSTORIES IN SEASON 3 THAN THE EARLIER SEASONS? DID YOU REALLY KILL MEGAVOLT?! CAN I GET YOUR PICTURE?" Throwing one arm around Drake, Honker took a quick selfie, Drake rubbing his eyes again.

While Honker was distracted by his phone, Drake shrugged the cape off and backed towards Gosalyn and the mess of papers and files. "Look, kid, I'm just an actor! I'm not the real – uhhhh…" Realizing the iconic hat was still on his head, Drake snatched it off with another large grin. "Darkwing was just a character. That's all. Ow!" Drake glared at Gosalyn, who had just elbowed him, the annoyed mallard rubbing his side. The teen nodded vigorously to the boy, who hung his head in shame.

"I know that, I'm sorry… I guess I just got carried away is all. It's just - it's too much to meet you! It's a huge honor!"

Drake looked the skinny, scrawny canary up and down, and sighed. The kid seemed harmless at least, and exactly the kind of poor sap Gosalyn would leap to the rescue of. Brushing some dust off the rim of his fedora, Drake tossed it on the teen's head, offering his other hand for a shake. "Drake Mallard, kid, known in some circles as 'Darkwing Duck'."

Gasping happily, the teen grabbed Drake's hand in both of his own, shaking it vigorously. "I'm Honker Muddlefoot, sir! It's an – an honor to meet you! I'm your biggest fan! Well, Darkwing's biggest fan," he blushed. He suddenly shoved the phone in Drake's face. "I even have the theme song as my ringtone! And look! Your old Season 2 promotional cutout at the mall!" The background to the phone was a Honker when he was about ten, a chubby, rolly-poly little boy, hugging a Darkwing cutout around the neck tightly.

"Cute," Drake offered his best grin, gently pushing the phone out of his face.

"Honker, what are you doing back here?" Gosalyn stepped forward, searching the pile of random papers in her hand with her phone-light. "I thought you hated the dark."

"Oh, I do," Honker nodded while Drake took the papers curiously from Gosalyn, who scooped up more from the piles around their ankles. "I brought a flashlight with me, but I guess that file cabinet crushed it when it – uh, fell on me."

"This thing," Drake pointed his light at the file cabinet, "really fell on you? Just toppled right over? Kid, a broken light should be the least of your worries. Your own lights could have gone out! Permanently!"

"Is that true?" Honker squeaked, watching Gosalyn step closer to him as Drake tiptoed through the sea to further investigate it. "I could – I could have died?!"

"Eh," she shrugged. "Don't mind Dad. He's always been a little melodramatic."

"I heard that!"

"'Dad'?" Honker frowned. "Wait!" He grabbed Gosalyn's jacket like he had grabbed Drake's, "you're Drake Mallard's daughter?! You're THE daughter! I NEED TO GET YOUR PICTURE!"

Leaping over the file cabinet suddenly, Drake slid down the pile of papers, hoping to their side. Halfway through Honker's selfie, Drake yanked them apart. "Cool it, Piper! What do you mean 'the daughter'?"

"Oh! Uh," wading back into the papers, Honker pulled a large leather-bound journal from it, turning back to them. He slipped, Drake and Gosalyn catching him. Ignoring them, Honker climbed and slipped out of the pile while flipping through the journal's pages. "Here it is, sir," he offered Drake the journal, him and Gosalyn crowding aorund it to read together.

 _"It's hard to believe, but I believe Drake has finally done it. He's finally gone too far. Along with his worthless attempts to soothe over the tensions he has only continued to worsen among the cast and crew after everything that's happened, as if he isn't blaming me for it all, Drake's ever-decreasing energy and attention levels have been consumed with a new interest in the few remaining female crew-members, and forcing them into conversations around finding a suitable 'sitter' and discussing St. Canard Middle School. All this leads me to believe that Drake has increased his singularly family by one, most likely a daughter. THE daughter."_

Both Mallards were silent, Gosalyn searching her father's pale and horrified expression. "Dad?" she pulled on his arm. "Is that-?"

"Where do you find this?" Drake growled suddenly at the other teen, advancing on him.

"It was just in here, on the floor! I was reading it when the cabinet – uh… fell."

"Blasphemy!" Drake proclaimed, quickly skimming through other entries. "This thing is filled with entries and observations about my personal life! Here, you see? I remember when this happened, it was right here on set! A-and this! This wasn't even on set, this was a conference call I had with the writers from my own home!" Slamming the book closed, he turned on Honker again, holding the book high above his head. "Whomever wrote this journal was intimately involved with the project! They even knew about Gosalyn, and NO ONE knew about her! This author is cunning, calculated, and observant! There is absolutely _no way_ they _simply_ left this just _laying around_ for just anybody to pick up!"

"Dad," Gosalyn tugged the duck away from where he towered over Honker, "doesn't that language sound a little familiar to you? Like another anonymous first-person account we've heard recently?"

Pausing long enough to blink dumbly at her, the mallard smacked his face when he understood. "The Anonymous news exclusive," they voiced at the same time.

"Of course," Drake paced away from the teens, flipping through the pages, "whomever wrote this journal must be the person feeding those accounts to that far-fetching Featherly!" Suddenly, he gasped, straightening. "And this is where they are keeping them."

Faster than the teens could react, Drake had grabbed Honker's wrist and was shoving the book into Gosalyn's back, moving them both for the door. "Come on kids, we've got to get going!"

"Dad!" Gosalyn protested, "what's the rush? We've barely looked around!"

"There will be plenty of time for that later," Drake replied, kicking open the front door and shoving Honker outside. "Go, Gosalyn!"

"I'm being rescued by Darkwing Duck!" Honker cheered.

"Dad!" Gosalyn protested when she reached the door, stomping one foot. With yelp, she was grabbed by Drake, who tossed her outside, going to follow. Something, however, made him pause on the threshold and cast a wary glance back inside. All those shadows he hadn't noticed before were starting to look very long, and very dark. With a nervous gulp, he pressed onward, closing the door securely behind him.


	6. Neighbors, in that Special St Canard Way

Suburban homes lined Avian Way on either side of the trio, hidden behind long driveways and tall hedges. The glimpses of the homes the two Mallards did get revealed lots of windows, double car garages, and one of them even had a fountain out front.

Gosalyn had asked what kind of place they were in as soon as they had gotten off the bus, and Honker had replied with a small sigh that it was his neighborhood. The houses were nice, he guessed, but no one talked to each other. They barely knew their neighbors, and his mom always said that the home owners' meetings were filled with strangers. She always said it was a shame that people didn't branch out more; neighbors should be the first line of defense and care outside of the family.

Drake and Gosalyn couldn't relate. The few neighbors they had gotten to know in their zig-zagging path from town to town had been pleasant, kind enough folks, but people who lived on the road tended to end up surrounded by others like them, so it wasn't expected that relationships would last very long. Gosalyn had never had the chance to get to know her neighbors, and Drake had no memories of any neighborhood friends, not from when he was a kid or an adult. Of course, when he was an adult, he was much too busy for petty things like socializing.

"Really, Honker," Drake spoke up from the back of the group, "you didn't have to insist we come crash at your place."

"Actually, Mr. Darkwing sir," the teen shrugged, "it was my mom that had insisted. I don't mean to correct you of course! It's just..."

" _You_ were the one that called her," Drake replied. "And it's 'Drake'."

"But all I did was ask her permission to invite you, Mr. Drake, sir. _She_ was the one that insisted you come." Tugging at his collar, Honker shrugged and smiled nervously, sweating nervously as he corrected his idol.

"He's got you there, Dad," Gosalyn smirked at Drake, the taller Mallard shooting her a warning look.

Honker had barely stopped shaking since meeting Drake, and he and Gosalyn had pretended to not hear how much excited screaming he released when he called his mom about bringing some guests home for dinner. It tickled Gosalyn tremendously, so see someone so flustered and excited over meeting her dad, but Drake was _far_ from enthused. And his temper had been building ever since they left the studio.

"My point is that we've got enough of our own mess back at the trailer to clean up, and we really should be seeing what, if any, of our own groceries we can salvage."

"Dad," Gosalyn scowled, "there isn't a _single_ thing we can salvage. I'm pretty sure the cops smashed the cereal boxes too."

Drake aimed another warning look at Gosalyn when Honker turned to face them suddenly, a glowing smile on his beak. "That's exactly why I invited you home with me!"

"Why?" The Mallards asked in unison, stopping.

His eyes filling with stars, Honker spun away from them, muttering to himself. _"I get to play sleuth and detective with Darkwing Duck!"_ Finished, the teen cleared his throat and pivoted back around to face the two, Drake crossing his arms with an unimpressed expression as Honker puffed up his thin chest and crossed his arms behind him. "You said your trailer had been thoroughly ransacked?"

"More like pillaged and plundered," Gosalyn crossed her arms as well, kicking one foot out.

"Gosalyn!" Drake snapped. "Watch your attitude, little missy."

Honker squealed to himself. "Darkwing Dad! Ahem, You two have only been back in the city for a few days, correct? But someone _already_ knew where you were living?"

"Adder said they got an anonymous tip," Drake mirrored his daughter's pose, intrigued by Honker's logic. "Of course, half the town would like to tar and feather us by this point. The tip could have come from anyone."

With an exasperated sigh, Honker's shoulders slumped forward. " _Exactly._ You've got people spying on your home, people breaking into the studio, people giving the news claims from that journal about the show, and the police ransacking your trailer with absolutely no reason to. The only safe place to read this," Honker pulled the journal out of his backpack, "is a neutral location."

"Hey – hey!" Drake snapped, covering the leather book with his hands. "Put that away! Look, so maybe someone is following us, then it's best not to go flashing that thing around in broad daylight!"

"Wait, 'someone'?" Gosalyn frowned at him while Honker squealed about Darkwing Duck touching his hands. "You think it's just one person?"

"I don't know what to think," grumbled Drake, rubbing the bridge of his bill. "But the sooner we get out of the open air and start figuring out who wrote this blasted thing the better."

"Exactly!" cheered, Honker, Drake frowning at him.

"Exactly why?"

"Just," Honker slumped forward, waving for them to follow, "follow me. We're almost home."

"Then we eat?" asked Gosalyn, skipping after Honker.

"Then we eat," Honker offered a shy grin. "Imagine! Darkwing Duck eating at my house!" Honker padded ahead with a smile on his face, Gosalyn shaking her head and following him. Behind the teens, Drake scowled, shoving his hands in his jacket pockets.

"Sure are plenty of nameless perps stinking their fingers in our business," he grumbled to himself, glancing around the group at every shadow and formless shape around them. " _Too_ many for my liking."

* * *

The Muddlefoots' home was somehow the most inviting of all of the houses on the block. It was a soft canary yellow, had a double car garage, and a large, beautiful garden was tucked against the front porch and many clear, bright windows filled the walls. The hedges that lined the home's property were the shortest of all their neighbors, and were neatly trimmed, surrounding a small white picket gate that blocked off the sidewalk. Honker reached around the gate, unlocking it from the inside.

"This is where you live?" Gosalyn gasped, grabbing the fence and staring at the home, her jaw slack. "Like, all the time?"

"Sure," shrugged Honker, allowing them to enter, "don't you normally live in your house?"

"Well I guess," Gosalyn passed him, looking around, "if you want a 'normal' life."

Behind her, Drake scowled, but reluctantly followed.

After beating them to the front door, Honker lead them inside, calling for his parents.

Gosalyn gasped again when she saw the ornate inside of the home, but Drake pinched her bill before she could express it.

"Zip it," he warned, Gosalyn frowning at him, confused and offended.

"In here, Honker," a twittering voice sang from the kitchen, and Honker hurried to the back of the house, Gosalyn following him excitedly. Lagging behind, Drake shoved his hands back in his jacket and trudged after them, pausing long enough to stare at the sheer size of their television screen.

They had a real, working fireplace, and Drake blinked at it. He had a fireplace in his childhood home, he remembered the scent of the ambers on his mother's feathers. Drake and -

-And his mother and father enjoyed the fires, even if St. Canard weather was never too inviting for them.

Past the fireplace, enormous television screen, and shining windows, the living room was cheery pastels, with alabaster carpets and a multicolored set of furniture, with an orange couch that faced the television and front of the house, lavender recliner, green love seat, and a red side table near a yellow coffee table. A few lamps that very much did not match the set were scattered around the various corners, and a full rack of DVDs was piled against the wall underneath a maze of framed photos of the family, most of which had clearly been taken as seflies by Honker. The family traveled a lot, it seemed, and Honker took pictures of everything. EVERYTHING, apparently, as there were several stuffed photo albums hidden around the open space.

"Hi, Mom!" smiled Honker, introducing the canary to his new friend in the next room, and Drake quickly shook himself from his observation and followed that direction. "This is Gosalyn Mallard. Gos, my mom, Binkie Muddlefoot."

"How do you do?" Binkie smiled and stood from her seat at the kitchen table. Straightening her skirt, her suit blazer draped carefully over the back of the chair, the canary shook Gosalyn's hand and turned to Honker.

"Pleasure to meet you, Gosalyn! Call me Binkie, please."

"Yes ma'am!" Gosalyn smiled, deciding immediately that she liked Binkie.

"Good!" Binkie twittered before frowning and turning to her son. "I thought you said Gosalyn's father would be joining us as well."

"Oh, yes, he certainly is!" Honker giggled and Gosalyn shook her head playfully at him.

"DAAAAAD!" she cried, yelping when Drake appeared suddenly and pinched her bill shut. "Sorry," she blushed as he glared at her.

Drake jerked his head towards Binkie, and Gosalyn faced her, the blush underneath her golden feathers increasing.

"Sorry, Mrs. Muddlefoot."

"Binkie is fine, my dear," Binkie giggled. "And I certainly don't mind a little ruckus in this house. It's gotten much too quiet lately."

"Mom, it's my honor to introduce _The_ Drake Mallard," Honker introduced proudly, sweeping his arms in a circle and presenting Drake as if he were a prize stallion. Binkie only giggled good-naturedly and offered her hand.

Binkie Muddlefoot, as Drake looked her up and down quickly, was a tall, strong canary, with soft yellow feathers, curly bangs, and a gentle, confident manner about her. Her pearl necklace dissolved into a white business blouse, with a baby-blue pencil skirt and black pumps. Her suit jacket, which matched her skirt, was draped over the back of her chair, and a full but meticulously organized messenger bag sat next to the chair. The laptop behind the woman was open to a word document, which, if Drake had to guess, looked very legal in nature. Her voice twittered, and her eyes were deep brown and sparkled, and Drake figured this woman was the reason for the home's organization, as he glanced around the kitchen.

The kitchen itself was just as put together as the canary before him. The counter tops were sparkling, and a pile of drying dishes sat next to the sink and underneath a pin board of recipes and shopping lists. A backdoor was straight ahead and parallel from the front door to the house, and a half-wall separated the sink, cupboards, and counter tops from the living room, the plush carpet dissolving into sparkling hard wood floors past the cherry blossom decorated wall. The kitchen table and floors were scattered dark and light red cherry wood, and the wallpaper on the walls was striped and covered with framed photographs of the family all cooking and dining together, which were, as expected, also mostly selfies.

The family was well traveled, well organized, and very healthy, judging by the contents in the photos and the various cooking instruments drying on the counter.

"We really don't mean to intrude," Drake said, not removing his hands from his pockets. "You really didn't need to invite us over for a – visit."

"Nonsense," Binkie waved his worry aside, sitting back down at the table and quickly typing a few things on her laptop. "I'm working from home today anyway, and besides that, we don't get nearly enough company these days. It's wonderful to meet new faces!"

"How refreshing," Drake crossed his arms, getting an elbow in his side from his daughter.

"Young lady!" he hissed quietly and the teen glared at him.

"Do you know Honker from school?" asked Binkie, welcoming them all to have a seat around the round kitchen table, shutting the laptop and stowing it in the bag before turning expectantly back to her guests. "Are you a teacher?"

"Uh," Honker stammered, having pulled the chair out for Drake to sit in. Seeing the teasing glare Gosalyn tossed him, Honker giggled and pulled the chair out for her as well. "No, not really."

Binkie raised one eyebrow. "Oh?"

"I met Honkman yesterday!" Gosalyn piped up, leaning her elbows on the table.

"Gosalyn!" Drake hissed from where he slumped in the chair, and the teen shrugged at him, but reluctantly sat back back off the table.

"It was just a case of being in the right place at the right time, I guess. We have a… few shared life experiences."

"Like what?"

"Cartoons mostly," Gosalyn smiled at Binkie. "Nerd stuff."

"Oh," Binkie straightened, casting a suspicious look at her son. "Do you really?"

"Thanks, Gosalyn," he muttered at the other teen, who blinked at him in confusion.

"What I say?"

Suddenly, the back door slammed open, Drake and the teens leaping out of their seats in surprise.

"My goodness," Binkie yelped, watching them all with worry. "It's just your father, Honker dear. My goodness, you three are wound tighter than a ball of yarn! Oh, Herb?"

"Yes Binkums?" a voice called from outside, a large round rear end poking into the door, waggling ad wiggling around. Leaning in their seats to catch the voice, the two ducks frowned.

"Herb dear," Binkie stood and crossed to the door, "what _are_ you doing?"

"Veggie-tables," Herb smiled, spinning around after pulling himself through the door, various vegetables from the overflowing basket he carried in his arms spilling over the sides. Honker immediately moved to help collect them, Gosalyn following before Drake could grab her. "You should see the garden, Binkums! We'll have tomatoes out our ears before you know it!"

"That's nice," Binkie forced a smile, dodging as Herb swung the basket around, waddling over to the sink. "Herb? These are our guests for dinner? Drake and Gosalyn Mallard."

Drake watched the very large, very round duck waddle himself and his basket across the kitchen and to the counter and sink. He wore a green and pink Hawaiian shirt, plastic sandals, which tracked dirt across the floor, and a sunhat that was entirely too small to do him any good. His voice was somewhere between someone drowning in oatmeal and a nasally cough, and something about his happily oblivious manner rubbed Drake every wrong way. He immediately didn't trust the larger - _much_ larger - duck, or liked him.

Finally dropping the basket on the counter, the Mallards swearing they felt the entire house shake, Herb spun around, pulling his comically small sunhat off his head and wiping his brow with a dirty garden glove. He left a streak of dirt across it. "That so? Well howdy-do, neighbors!"

Drake sank lower and lower into his chair with each step the sumo-shaped duck made in his direction, offering an unconvincing smile. "You know what, Drakey," Herb laughed, grabbing Drake in a one-armed chokehold and picking him up off the floor. "I like you! It's so great when neighbors decide to come on over for a visit!"

"Yeah," Drake coughed, clawing at the meaty arm around his neck with his hands, "swell."

"So, Honker," after dropping Drake on the floor like a bag of potatoes, Herb turned back to his son, who was already cleaning the vegetables in the sink. "What do you think our new neighbors would like for dinner? I got lots of fresh zucchini in there!"

"Uh, I don't know, Dad," Honker shrugged, nodding to the Mallards, Gosalyn and Binkie helping Drake to his feet. "Why don't you ask them? Mr. Mallard would know more than I do."

"Sure, sure," Herb laughed, tossing some cucumbers in the sink. "I guess – **wait** …"

The trio froze, turning to Herb as he slowly twisted around to glare at Drake, every fiber in his flubbery body tense and tight.

"...Did you say 'Mallard', son?"

Honker swallowed, whimpering back a meek, "y-yes sir."

"Your name, neighborino," Herb smiled down at Drake all too friendly, thundering quickly to him, "wouldn't happen to be 'Drake' Mallard, would it? _Friend?"_

Drake frowned, straightening and crossing his arms. "Named after my great-grandfather, Drake Dumas Mallard, thank you."

"Oh, that's what I thought you said it was," Herb smiled pleasantly. Everyone blinked at each other. Suddenly, Herb's grew redder than the tomatoes in Honker's hands, and he curled his massive hands into fists. Tossing his head back, the duck released a monstrous bellow.

 _"HONKER!"_

"Now Herb-!" yelped Binkie, planting herself between her husband and the teen, who quickly hid behind her when Herb stomped towards him. Drake and Gosalyn swapped concerned looks, Drake holding Gosalyn back as she stepped forward to intervene. "Now don't you go and lose your temper, dear!"

"OUT OF MY WAY, BINKIE!" Herb roared. "If I've told that boy once, I've told him a hundred times! And this – this is the last straw, young man!"

"Herb!" Binkie snapped, putting her hands on her hips. "Herb Muddlefoot, we have guests!"

"Oh, I know that, Binkums dear," Herb waved one arm at the Mallards, "two _Mallards_! Staying for dinner! You've gone too far this time, son! TOO FAR!"

"I'm sorry, Dad!" Honker cried.

"Herb, that's enough!"

"You're going to be grounded until you die!"

"ENOUGH!" Gosalyn screamed, ducking past Drake and stomping over to the arguing family. " _Mind_ telling me just _what_ is going on here?!"

"It-it's a long story," Honker muttered, flinching when Herb yelled at him again.

"Oh, SHUT UP!" snapped Gosalyn, quickly planting herself between the much larger duck and the canaries. "Long story, short story, I don't care! I thought," she stood on her tiptoes and mashed a finger into Herb's chest, "my dad and I were _guests_ here! Is this how you usually treat your _guests_? Yelling at your own kid right in front of them? You think you're the first chump in this stinking town that has treated me and Dad like common criminals? Like the name 'Mallard' is going to bring a disastrous plague on those sweet little tomato bushes of yours? Well guess what, 'neighborino,' you're not, and you definitely aren't going to be the last! So, pipe down, clam up, and _try_ to act like a half-way civilized adult, because we are your _guests_!" Stretching to her full height, Gosalyn glared right in Herb's face. "Got it?"

Behind the two, Drake had his arms crossed, one hand messaging the bridge of his bill as Binkie and Honker walked over and stood by him.

"My, my," Binkie muttered to Drake, who didn't look up at her, even as her smirk shined through her tone, "is she always this outspoken?"

"Sure is," he grumbled, dropping his hand and messaging his temples instead. "Just a couple weeks ago she gave a similar speech to Ms. Bunbottom, her science teacher from fifth grade. Give or take a few explicatives."

"What had she done to the girl?" gasped Binkie, looking in shock between the two Mallards.

"Called Gosalyn a blonde once, I think is what she said." Rolling up his sleeves while Binkie gasped, Drake stomped his way to the arguing duo.

"Where did you say you met these two, Honker?"

After wedging himself between Gosalyn and Herb, Drake pushed against her shoulders, Gosalyn's sneakers squeaking on the hardwood floors as he pushed her backwards and away from the larger - and older - duck.

"Gosalyn! Enough!" he cut his hands through the air and the teen blinked up at him.

"But Daaad-! He started it!"

"And I'm finishing it! Honestly, Gos, for lecturing these people on being bad hosts, you're not being a very good guest."

"But Dad-!"

"Gosalyn!" Drake gave her a stern glare, and the teen slowly calmed, crossing her arms with a defeated pout. "Thank you." Drake sighed, combed his feathers back, straightened his jacket, and spun around to face Herd. He opened his mouth to apologize, but Herb's massive fist suddenly collided into his face, cutting off any apology he could throw together. "Ow," Drake giggled and collapsed, unconscious before he hit the hardwood floor.

* * *

Drake opened his eyes a few hours later, shooting upright with a panicked, strangled cry.

"GOSALYN!"

"I'm right here, Dad!" Gosalyn barked quickly, grabbing his hand and curling it against her chest.

He was laying on the Muddlefoot's couch and Gosalyn was sitting next to it on the floor, discarded cell phone sitting near-by.

Panting for a moment, Drake grabbed his head, staring dead ahead while his senses caught back up with him. "Gos?" he croaked down at her, the teen shifting her weight and scooting closer to the couch. His hand was still grasped in her own, the other gripping his head.

"Yeah, Dad, I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere without yah."

A slow smile spread across his bill, and Drake relaxed, twisting around to cradle her cheek with his other hand, pressing a long kiss on the top of her head. When he opened his eyes, he glanced up at the face of a smiling Binkie Muddlefoot. Screaming, Drake shot backwards, dragging Gosalyn with him.

"Binkie!" he panted, clutching his chest and glaring down at her from where he had scrambled onto the couch arm. "Didn't anyone ever tell you not to loom over an unconscious man?!"

"Oh," Binkie straightened, one finger on the tip of her beak, "I'm afraid not. Did I startle you?"

His expression going neutral, Drake stared at her for a second. "No, I always wake up from unconsciousness kicking and screaming. Wait-!" Leaping to his feet, Drake half-dragged Gosalyn onto the couch, who called for him desperately. "Oh, sorry, Gos," he whimpered, sitting her down gently. Once she was comfortable, he continued his pose, pointing an accusatory finger at Binkie. "Your husband sucker-punched me in the face! Right in the bill! I know it's hard to miss, but come on! I don't even know the big galoot!"

"I know that," Binkie replied with desperation, pawing at her own face, "admittedly, it wasn't Herb's most shining moment."

"'Admittedly'," Drake repeated. "'Admittedly', she says. WHAT PART OF THAT IS AN ADMISSION? It's the truth!"

"Dad!" Gosalyn scolded, putting her hands on her hips. "Mrs. Muddlefoot is trying to _apologize_ to you! Would you shut up and let her?!"

Growling, Drake dropped to the couch and crossed his arms in a pout. Gosalyn leaned against it and crossed her own arms, watching Binkie expectantly. "Well? All I had to do was get him quiet. You're supposed to handle the rest. Good luck."

Binkie glared at her for a moment, eventually rolling her eyes with a large sigh. "Herb usually isn't that… direct," she smiled and eased closer. "And, well – oh…" collapsing backwards onto the couch suddenly, Binkie sighed at them and buried her face into her hands. "I'm afraid you're right. I let things get too out of hand, and I'm very sorry for that. Honker invited you both back here so you could have a nice, pleasant place to spend the day and make some new friends, and my husband's irrational hatred almost ruined that!"

"What 'irrational hatred'?" Drake asked, his tone softened to gentle confusion. "Something to do with our name?"

Standing, Binkie motioned for them to follow. "Let me show you. It will be easier that way."

* * *

Upstairs in the master bedroom, which was decorated in soft earth tones and had some exercise equipment in the corner, Binkie pulled a large box out from under the queen-sized bed. "All of this belongs – belonged to poor Honker." Opening the lid, Binkie revealed the contents to the two Mallards, who leaned close to peer inside.

The box was filled with neatly stacked comic books, a lunchbox, figurines, posters, and even an alarm clock, all of which boldly and loudly bore the face of _Darkwing Duck_.

Binkie stood and sat down, the box in her lap.

"Impressive, isn't it?" she smirked sadly, allowing the others to peer closer to the contents. "He was very proud of his collection..."

"Gee," Drake breathed, gently lifting a comic book from the box. "This all belonged to one kid?"

"I told you he was a _huge Darkwing_ fan," Gosalyn muttered, pulling an old Darkwing letterman jacket from the box. "Wow! Keen gear!"

"Oh no, Mr. Mallard, it's not like that at all. My son is your _biggest_ fan."

Gosalyn shot her a questioning glare.

"After Gosalyn here, of course."

Smiling, Gosalyn turned back to the jacket, holding it up against her shoulders to check the size. It was heavy and made well, and not a single stitch had been stretched or the fabric picked. On the back was the _Darkwing_ emblem, which was the daring silhouette of her dad, fedora and all, the usual purple accessories covered in gleaming gold. On the front was a small "DWD" emblem in similar gold, and Gosalyn ran her fingers over it gently. The tag inside the collar said, "Verified Official _Darkwing Duck_ Collector's Edition", and she sighed sadly. Such a shame to see a great jacket go to waste in a box under a bed.

Setting the box beside her, Binkie continued.

"Honker didn't have a very friendly childhood, I'm afraid. Try as we might, he never had much confidence or many friends. I'm afraid he still doesn't. You understand how children can be."

"Sure," Drake rubbed the edge of the pages between his fingers, having being absorbed in the stories he had never read. "We both do."

"Well, when _Darkwing Duck_ came on the air, it gave my Honker something to look forward to! No matter what he was doing, he would drop it all and watch that program as soon as it came on. Better yet, he finally began to fit in with the kids around him." Digging out the old lunchbox from the bottom of the box, Binkie smiled down at it. "Herb and I encouraged it at first, together. We took him shopping to spend his allowance on every new piece of _Darkwing_ merchandise that came out, and sometimes I would pitch in to help buy the ones he couldn't. It got so ridiculous, we often joked he lived in, oh what was that place..."

"'Darkwing Tower'?" suggested Gosalyn, and Binkie smiled.

"That's the place. We joked he lived in 'Darkwing Tower' instead of our actual house."

A small chuckle escaped Drake's bill, and Gosalyn looked at him quickly, watching her dad carefully flip the pages of the book cradled in his hands. She had almost never seen him so careful with anything in her life. Sure, her dad was a skilled acrobatic and fighter, but he was notoriously clumsy thanks to his brain often thinking about a million things at once and forgetting he needed to watch where he was going. Plus, he was just about as danger prone as she was a magnet for trouble. But the way he held the comic book, compared to the vision of those bullies brutally gutting the books, she pulled together a little more respect for her father.

"Of course," Binkie replaced the lunchbox, gently taking the jacket from Gosalyn and folding it, "you know what they say about 'all good things'."

"What happened?" asked Drake, handing her the comic.

"The show ended," the canary shrugged. "The rest of the kids at school were told to turn their backs on the show because of the controversy around it's ending, and everyone did. Everyone except Honker."

"So that's why it all just vanished," Drake muttered to himself, tucking his hands under his arms. "I always wondered why the buzz about the show's ending was never really there."

"What happened to Honker?" Gosalyn asked, jumping up on the edge of the bed.

"He couldn't let the whole thing go," Binkie knelt, sliding the box back under the bed. "He considered the characters on that show as his only friends, you see. I tried to assure Herb that Honker would grow out of it, but I'm afraid he simply never did. He defended that show and its integrity relentlessly, he still does as a matter of fact, and I hated going behind Herb's back, but your character lit such a fire in my son's eyes, I couldn't force him to cut it out completely. So, over the years, Herb has only gotten more and more resentful of the whole thing."

The Mallards said nothing, just sat quietly, until Binkie quite suddenly stomped her foot.

"Oh! I'll tell you, Drake and Gosalyn dear, Herb going and attacking our house guests just because of your past employment – oh! It just ruffles my feathers!"

Drake chuckled lightly, propping himself up on the edge of the bed, one hand combing Gosalyn's bangs from her face. "Don't worry too much about it, Mrs. Muddle – eh, Binkie." Playfully punching the edge of Gosalyn's bill with his knuckles, he smiled as she swatted his hands away. "I've been punched in the bill for much less. People just can't seem to keep their hands off this devilishly handsome thing."

"As awful as this sounds," Binkie giggled, "that is a relief. And it's not a terribly dreadful bill for a goose. I'd say you're quite handsome for a gander, actually."

"You aren't a gander, are you?" Gosalyn whispered, leaning on her dad's shoulder.

"Nope. Though Uncle Henry once suspected that Great-Grandpa Lloyd was."

"Binkums?" Herb called from downstairs, and Drake instinctively flinched, sliding off the bed and shoving his hands in his pockets with a scowl. "Binkie dearest, dinner is almost ready! Uh, will the … guests be joining us?"

"You could always ask them yourself, dearest," muttered the canary with an eye roll, moving to the door. "Of course you two are more than welcomed to stay if you'd like. I promise Herb will be better behaved, Drake. He's not usually like this at all, I assure you. I've never thought he'd be capable of hurting someone."

Perking up excitedly, Gosalyn jumped off the bed, facing her dad, who shifted his attention to her, unimpressed.

"Can we, Dad? Please?"

Drake groaned to himself, facing Binkie. "If you don't mind having us, Mrs. Muddlefoot… dinner could be… fun. I can't remember the last meal we shared with… neighbors."

Tickled, Binkie hurries to the stairs. "Wonderful! I'll get set the places. You two take your time, please. We'll be downstairs whenever you're ready."

Drake decided that, while he'd be happen to see if Herb would float in the canal, he liked Binkie Muddlefoot.

"Honker! Set two more places at the table, please!"

They both heard the teen scream in excitement, quickly scolded by his father.

"We'll be down in just a second," Gosalyn smiled at Binkie, who left them alone with a smile.

"Gosalyn-?"

"DAD!" the teen snapped, spinning on her father with a scowl. " _Don't_ ruin this!"

Drake scoffed, pulling his hands from his pockets and crossing his arms. "I'm _sorry_? What, _exactly_ , am I ruining here? The chance to get clobbered in the bill again by Mr. _Weebles-Wobbles_ down there just because he had a kid that happened to like superheroes more than gardening?"

"That's not fair!" Gosalyn crossed her arms with a growl. "I'll have you know that besides punching you in the face, Herb Muddlefoot is actually a very nice guy!"

"'Nice guy'?! Gosalyn my dear, I'm not sure if you realized this or not, but Herb 'Actually a Very Nice Guy' Muddlefoot punched me! In! The! Bill!"

"Yeah, yeah, I know! I was there, you big baby!"

Growling, Drake crossed his arms, scowling down at the teen. "You know, if I wasn't so worried that our home, sorry, 'trailer' was still being watched, I'd drag you right back there, right now, and send you to bed without any supper at all, young lady! Home cooked or not!"

Gosalyn gasped, dropping her pose. "What did I do? All I said was 'don't ruin this'!"

"Yes, that's precisely what you said!"

"That's not fair!" pleaded the teen. "That's not what I meant!"

"Then what _did_ you mean, Gosalyn?" Drake jabbed, waiting. "Because your attitude lately has gotten completely out of hand!"

Recrossing her arms, Gosalyn huffed and turned away, bill wrinkled in concentration and frustration. After a moment of silence, she spoke up quietly. "Honker is a fan of _Darkwing Duck_. He's, you know, like – he's obsessed with it. You heard those questions he was asking you about it. And he's – you know, smart. With the whole 'coming here so we would be safe' thing."

"I know that," Drake leaned on the edge of the bed, his arms still crossed. "So what?"

"He was in that office, dressing room, whatever it was, poking around, probably trying to find something to… like…" Gosalyn rubbed a hand through her strawberry colored hair, her other arm tightly wrapped around herself. "…Defend the show, okay?"

"Maybe he was, maybe he wasn't," Drake shrugged.

"I bet anything he was. And plus, uh, he was the one that found the journal! And he – well Binkie said it herself! Honker could use a friend! They… they all could, Dad."

Stunned, Drake gently scowled at himself, adverting his eyes from his daughter. Gosalyn took a small step closer to him.

"The way those bullies were picking on him yesterday… what his mom said… I don't think Honker has any friends in the world, not real ones. And the Muddlefoots are nice enough Dad, even you can see that!"

With a gentle sigh, Drake uncrossed his arms and gripped on the edge of the bed. "What are you trying to say, Gosalyn? What are you asking?"

The teen looked at the carpet under her shoes quickly, rubbing one toe into it. "They keep calling us 'neighbors', like they want to – want to be our friends. And we've never had that. No one else has ever thrown us a 'Moving In' dinner. And – and – I want to stay. Can't we make friends, Dad? Please?"

Blinking slowly, Drake let his eyes fall, his fingers pinching at the plastic of his jacket in thought. "You really want to stay, don't you?"

"Yes, I do! I want to make friends. Besides, Honker might be able to help us! He's smart, and has already been defending the show for a long time. He's the biggest nerd we've got." Her bill wrinkled in slight disgust. "Bigger than me, even. Maybe."

With a sigh, his shoulders deflating, Drake stared at her and Gosalyn offered him a bashful grin. "Alright," he shrugged finally, "I'll try to play nice. But-!" he grabbed the teen's arm before she could run out the door, "you have to promise me that we won't drag the Muddlefoots into anything until after all of this passes."

"But Dad-!"

"Gosalyn, I'm serious! What Oxford said, finding that journal… I've got a very bad feeling that this isn't close to being over, and we don't need to drag nice people like the Muddlefoots into it! Not anymore than they already are, which is too much. Are we clear? We'll make friends with them, Gosalyn," he took her shoulders in his hands, "you were right about that. But we need to push it off until it's safe, okay? For them."

"Okay," Gosalyn squirmed, a small smile stretching across her bill. "Deal."

"Deal," Drake shook her hand, the teen dashing to the door.

"Here we come!" she announced, and Drake shook his head, following.

At the base of the stairs, hearing Herb call his name, Drake tensed, shoving his hands back in his pockets. Noticing his own habit, he growled at himself. He pulled them back out and rolled his sleeves up to his elbows idly, just as something for them to do. Having taken a steadying breath, Drake forced himself around the corner and took his seat at the crowded dinner. When his eyes hit the sheer volume of food that stretched out before them, however, and after Binkie insisted that they both eat their fill, it was much easier to forgive. Forgetting, he shook his hands out to try to loosen them up, clenching and unclenching them a few times to make sure, however, would have to come later. Much later.


	7. St Canard Tumbling Down

At first, dinner was quiet, the two Mallards much too hungry to engage in proper conversation. But eventually, her chatty nature got the better of her, and Gosalyn piped up, turning the attention to Honker and his fascinating life. Of course, the other teen would never in a hundred years consider his life fascinating, but Gosalyn had never had much of a daily routine, not since Drake adopted her, and it was an alien concept to her.

As proud as he was of his socialite daughter, heck if he knew where she got it, Drake couldn't help but notice how the mammoth sized duck at the other end of the table kept careful note of everything Gosalyn said. How interesting to him that Gosalyn hadn't attended a proper school since turning ten, once slept under a bridge (with her father wrapped protectively and fully awake around her) because they couldn't afford to get their trailer out of the city impound, and had even had to sneak in and out of a motel room for several days on end when she was thirteen because Gosalyn had gotten the flu and Drake was forced to choose between paying for medicine or providing his baby girl with a warm bed. Herb, Drake feared, was cataloging those events away for later, completely leaving out how desperate and terrified Drake had been in each of those moments of failing or losing her daughter, ravaged by the truth that there was no one else to blame for their troubles than himself and his unsatisfied ego.

Not that he was overly eager for Gosalyn to be sharing those stories, but Honker and Binkie were intensely interested, and sympathetic, by them. And Binkie had said that it wasn't necessary for Gosalyn to humor their curiosity, but Gosalyn had insisted. She loved talking about the hero that her father was, or the scraps and downs they had fought their way out of.

Thankfully, Gosalyn didn't know all sides of those stories, and Drake was sure he had a few details he'd carry to the grave with him. Gosalyn didn't need to know just how far he had gone to provide and protect her in the past...

However, Drake wasn't the only observant Mallard in the room. Over their five years as a family, Gosalyn had learned to read her father like a book, a skill he feared and envied at times, and she noticed right away when his silent attention turned to Herb, one eye constantly watching him in the corner. So, eager to make the first dinner among the new friends a good one, she made a point of including her dad in the stories. Sometimes, she would ask him about small details Drake knew she remembered vividly. Other times, she would beg him to recreate a face or goofy catchphrase from some of their more light-hearted stories, which always had the whole audience laughing. And whether Drake got the hints she was not so subtly dropping him or not, he eventually livened up, joining in the story telling. Once she got her dad going, Gosalyn could sit back with a satisfied smile, letting her masterful story-teller of a father take the show away.

They had just finished telling the story of how they got kicked out of Brockton City, when Honker broke the mood.

"Oo- oo! That reminds me of that one episode of _Darkwing_ , remember? When you and Megavolt accidentally switched bodies, but it was Morgana's fault, and the two of you had to - to-!"

"Yep, yep, yep," Drake interrupted, a nervous giggle escaping him, "I remember that one, kid. It was hard to forget. You would not _believe_ how long it took us to get Elmo to do all those classic Darkwing stunts. That rodent hated heights more than cats hate water."

"What?" Honker gasped. "Really? But he was always stealing light bulbs out of streetlamps and out of shop windows and stuff!"

Drake shrugged casually. "Would you believe 'movie magic'?"

"Wow," the teen sighed, sitting back in his chair and giving his mind a moment to digest the new information.

"Did you spend a lot of time at the studio, Gosalyn?" Binkie asked, handing the redhead the bread basket.

"No ma'am, Dad never let me go to work with him." Having taken a roll, Gosalyn stuffed it in her mouth, talking around it as she finished her answer. "Actually, I barely knew he was Darkwing Duck for practically... forever."

"I tried my best to keep the two lives separate," Drake added in. "Drake Mallard adopted Gosalyn, _not_ Darkwing Duck, and I didn't want a ten-year-old to get caught up in the hurricane of it all."

"Dad!" Gosalyn teased, playfully bumping him with her elbow.

"Sorry, nine-year-old. But barely."

"That's quite the responsibility," Herb spoke up for the first time all dinner, and Drake's shoulders tensed before he could stop himself. "Managing a job as time consuming and demanding on you as that cartoon, _and_ single-handedly raising a daughter? You must have worked yourself to the bone doing both at once. I don't see how you possibly could of! It just seems like so much!"

"It wasn't always easy," Drake replied tightly, "but I think we managed."

"I can certainly see that," chuckled Herb. "A girl with that much spunk and energy must have had no issues with keeping herself entertained and occupied all day and night while you were at work. Not to mention traversing back and forth all across the map."

While Binkie glared at her husband, Gosalyn glanced at her dad, who was memorizing the contents of his plate with a deep scowl. "Of course," he spoke up suddenly, straightening and meeting Herb's eyes, "Herb does have a point. As you can clearly see," Drake shrugged with a half chuckle, letting the whole situation roll of his shoulders with elegant ease, or practiced acting, "we've never had much of a structed life between the two of us, _but_ I think it's fortunate for us that we haven't. After all the stress of the show and its collapse, and Gosalyn's spunk and spirit, we probably would have suffocated in a comfy place like this. Don't get me wrong," he waved his hands before himself quickly, gesturing kindly to Honker and his mother, "this home _is_ lovely, and for people like you it seems to have grown and nurtured a happy, healthy family, but Gos and I just aren't cut from the same cloth."

Gosalyn gently shoved her dad with her shoulder, smiling at him with all the thanks and pride she could. Relieved he made her proud, Drake planted a kiss on her strawberry colored hair, causing the teen to giggle and try to squirm out from under him. Finally letting her go with a loud _smack_ of his lips, Drake turned back to his food, peaking over at Herb, who was scowling at himself.

* * *

After dinner, Drake and the two adult Muddlefoots were gathered near the front door, Drake calling up the stairs for Gosalyn.

"Gosalyn! It's high time we headed home!"

"But Daaaaaad," the teen whined, her and Honker poking their heads out of the canary's room, "the trailer still looks like it had been used as a maraca by Hurricane Harry, remember?"

"Which is exactly why we need to be getting back," Drake called back, putting his hands on his hips. "That mess isn't going to clean itself up."

"What happened to your trailer?" asked Binkie, the Mallard slipping his hands into his pockets with a small shrug.

"Just got a small rodent infestation. It's worked itself out by now, _we just need to clean up the mess left behind!"_

"Okay, okay," Gosalyn muttered, trudging down the stairs, "I heard you the first time."

"Oh, I'd hate to send you both all the way across town at this time of night! At least let Herb drive you!"

"NO!" Drake choked, catching himself with a small cough, chuckling up at the couple. "No, no, that won't be necessary. I already called for a taxi. We'll be just fine, thank you anyway. After all," he continued, Gosalyn bouncing next to him, "we've already been more than hospitable, and we'd hate to put you out anymore."

"All though a sleep over would be pretty keen!"

Drake aimed a sharp glare at Gosalyn, who shrugged.

"What?! At least until the trailer is right-side-up."

"That would be splendid if you and Honker could see each other more," Binkie smiled, clasping her hands together. "Wouldn't it, Herb dear?"

Grunting as his wife jammed her thin elbow into his side, Herb crossed his arms. "Oh yeah, sure, sure."

With a flip of Gosalyn's ponytail, Drake grinned down at her. "Maybe another time, Gosalyn, _like we discussed_. But we've got a lot of _work_ to do _before things get any busier_."

"Oh yeah," the teen blushed, tightening her ponytail with a two-handed yank. "Some other time then, Honk-man."

"I hope so," smiled the canary, handing Gosalyn the journal they had taken from the studio. "But don't forget this."

"Just what is that?" Herb asked, stepping forward and peering over Honker's shoulders to the book Gosalyn clutched. She backed up quickly, hiding the book behind her back and shoving it into her dad's hands.

"Nothing! It's, uh, for school?"

"School?" Honker's parents repeated, Gosalyn stammering in place.

"Uh- yeah! It's for - uh - we use it-"

"Relax Herb," Drake scooped the book out of Gosalyn's hands and held is at his eye level, inspecting it like he'd never seen it before. "It's probably just more of that _War of Warducks_ stuff. You know kids these days and their new-fangled vidja games. Be careful with this, Gosalyn," he handed to book back to her, "it doesn't belong to you."

"Sure thing, Dad!" Pulling the front door open, Gosalyn tossed a quick farewell to the family and raced down the lawn and for the taxi parked on the curb.

"Gosalyn!" Drake barked. "Get off their lawn!"

"It's, it's no problem," Binkie giggled. "Let the girl run."

"And about that book," Herb crossed his arms again. "If you're sure it's _just War of Warducks_ stuff, Drakey."

"Hey," the Mallard shrugged, one hand on the door knob, "I'm just an irresponsible, neglective, workaholic Dad who has an out of control and crude daughter. What do I know?"

Standing by the taxi, Gosalyn waved to the family. "Good night Mr. and Mrs. Muddlefoot! Good night, Honker! Thanks for dinner!"

"Good night, Gosalyn," the family chorused, Binkie telling her to come back any time.

"And text me if you find – uh, enjoy the book," Honker called, the redhead promising that she would.

"Yes, thank you both for dinner," Drake repeated, offering his hand and shaking Binkie's after stepping onto the porch. "We really must do this again sometime, Binkie."

The canary giggled, waving Drake off, who winked at her.

"Honker! We'll see each other around, yeah?"

"We sure will," the teen smiled, staring starry eyed at Drake and fist bumping him. "It was such an honor to meet you!"

"Dad! The trailer isn't going to clean itself," Gosalyn called from the other side of the taxi, Drake laughing at her.

"When that girl moves she races," he shook his head. "You three have a –"

Suddenly, Gosalyn screamed, and Drake spun around around in time to see the taxi driver, a large beagle the size of Herb, wrap his big meaty arms around her shoulders.

"GET OFFA ME! _DADDY_!" she screamed, finally throwing the arms from around her and to her hands and knees on the asphault. "GET AWAY FROM ME!"

Suddenly, her father appeared, leaping over the roof of the small taxi and over the driver's head, kicking it backwards against the hood of the car. The large beagle slumped against the taxi, holding his head as the world spun and Drake landed next to him. Through his blurry vision, however, he spied the journal that Gosalyn had dropped, laying between them, and snatched it while Drake pulled the teen to her feet and shoved her towards the house.

"Dad – the journal!" the teen protested, and Drake stopped, ducking as the beagle swung the book at his head. Springing up, Drake kneed him in the nose, landing on one foot and panting another powerful kick to the dog's middle, who tumbled against the open driver door.

"Gosalyn, get out of here!" Drake demanded, Gosalyn pointing at the journal.

"But he's still got the – DAD, LOOK OUT!"

The warning was too late, however, as the crowbar the driver had pulled out of the taxi split Drake across his temple with a harsh blow. One more blow hit him in the bill, and Drake tumbled to the ground, Gosalyn rushing at him with a panicked cry.

With a kick, the driver moved Drake from underneath the car, and threw the book inside, laughing at the ducks. "See you around, _Dweebwing_ ," he waved, slamming the door after him. Drake and Gosalyn covered each other as the screeching tires kicked pebbles and dirt onto them and covered them in a cloud of exhaust. Coughing, the ducks waved the cloud away, Gosalyn leaping to her feet as the taxi vanished.

"That no good son-of-a-!"

"Gosalyn!" Honker cried, him and his family charging the ducks, Binkie already on her phone.

"Yes Officer," she spoke into it, reciting the taxi's license plate number, which fell off as the clunky car sputtered down the street and backfired at them a few times. The family hit the road at the sound, Drake diving over Gosalyn. Once the car was out of sight, the group slowly stood, Binkie holding her cell phone against her ear once more. "Our address is -"

"W-wait-!" Drake stopped her, reaching one shaking hand her direction. With a couple of hoarse coughs, gulping the air back into his stunned lungs, Drake climbed to his hands and knees, gripping the open wound on his head with one hand.

"Dad!" squawked Gosalyn, quickly pulling Drake's arm around her shoulder and pulling him up. He was righted with a hiss, wiping the blood from the crack in his bill with his sleeve.

"Don't tell them anything," Drake hissed again at Binkie, who yelped as Drake snatched the phone, reported the whole incident as a practical joke, and ended the call.

"Whatever did you do that for?!" she stammered. "That taxi driver just tried to kidnap Gosalyn! And attacked you!"

"Actually," Honker spoke up, "I think he was going after the journal."

"What d'you mean, Honk?" frowned Gosalyn, all eyes turning on the other teen. He held up his phone to show them his video of the whole incident. It showed most everything, the audience cringing at the sound of Drake's skull being split open by the crowbar.

"See? As soon as he got that journal, he left. I don't think he was going after Gosalyn at all."

"Wait a minute," Herb cried, "what 'journal'? You mean that silly book? Honker!"

Gulping, the teen looked to the Mallards for help, who stared back with worry.

"Oh honestly, Herb," Binkie scolded, stepping forward and trying to pull Drake's hand away from the wound on his head, the duck hissing at her. "As if that matters right now! What matters is that these two are alright! Oh, Drake Mallard, let me see that wound!"

"Not on your life, sister!" Drake snapped, yanking himself away from her. "Whoever wanted that journal had no issues bloodying me and Gosalyn to get to it! And now they know where the rest of you live! The sooner we get away from you and take all this mess back to the trailer the quicker you will all be out of harm's way."

"Dad's right," Gosalyn added, readjusting Drake's arm around her shoulders. Then, she added more quietly, "we should have never come here in the first place."

"Oh, I have had it!" Stomping, Binkie put her hands on her hips and glared back and forth between the two ducks. "Mysterious journals, fights, taxi drivers attacking the both of you! Not letting me call the police! What is going on?!"

Drake and Gosalyn exchanged a worried look, Drake looking over their shoulders at the direction the taxi had left. "I bet that journal could have answered all of that."

* * *

A cat screeched and darted from under the front steps of the Mallard's trailer, which Gosalyn stumbled onto, pulling her dad after her.

The trailer park was dark and silent, the only light coming from the few street lamps that were scattered around the park, the ones that had blown out long ago making circles of shadow in the loose blanket of yellow. Everyone was already tucked safely in for the night, but Gosalyn didn't even spare a thought towards trying not to disturb them. Sure, she had seen the complaints that had been stapled to their door by the park's managers over all the commotion the small family had caused, even in the two days they'd lived there, but right now, she was more worried about getting her mostly unconscious dad into his own bed before anyone else could take a swing at them.

"Come on, Dad," she growled, turning her dad's pockets inside out to find the keys, "stay with me!"

Finally, the door was opened, and Gosalyn gave it one powerful kick, sending the trash all over the floor that might have blocked their entrance flying. "I'll clean that up later," she grumbled, pulling Drake up the stairs. Passing the threshold, they both collapsed with heavy pants, sweat on both of their brows. With a gentle shove, the teen untangled herself from her dad, ingoring how he groaned lightly, and stepped over him, nearly tripping on some random junk, and flipped the lights on. Drake groaned as the light stabbed his eyes, and began to rub them as he swayed his way to his feet.

"No," he slurred, leaning against the wall, "battered, but-na – ne'er defeated…!"

"'No' is right," Gosalyn snapped, wrestling her dad away from the door before he could tumble out. He landed with a heap on the floor and a clipped grunt, Gosalyn pulling him into her lap. "You're going straight to bed, Mister," she commanded, trying to meet his glazed and wondering eyes. "You're worse than you were after that car accident in San Marillo!"

"Gos-!" With a groan, Drake pushed her away and climbed his way up the kitchen drawers to the counter, tossing various items to the floor as he grabbed them. "I have to – need to keep you safe!"

Tearing the kitchen towel he had tossed over her face off, Gosalyn stared up at him, pleading with her concussed father. "What do you think you've been doing my whole life?!"

Drake blinked a few times, staring at her with confused, heartbroken tears in his eyes. His face fell and he pawed in her direction, slumped against the counter and unable to pull himself back up. Gosalyn hurried to him and took his hand, guiding him down to the floor. Drake melted against the drawers, exhausted and weary and too dizzy to continue to fight.

"What – what're you talking about?" he whimpered, Gosalyn scooting closer and wrapping her other hand around his own. She massaged away the dried blood that covered them.

"What do you think Honker and I were doing all that time in Honker's room while you were unconscious and after dinner? Playing chutes and ladders?"

Drake blinked up at her, his expression unchanging.

"We were reading the journal," she explained softly, wiping the dried blood from the crack in the corner of his bill with the kitchen towel. "We were trying to figure out who's been coming after us."

"Wait," he pawed the towel away, squirming around so he faced her more openly, "you – you read all of it?"

"Yeah, we did, silly," the teen offered soft smile. "Well, skimmed it. There's a lot there. But we got the general idea: everything about me, your work on the show… everything that reporter has been saying over the air… it was all in there."

Drake had watched the evening news with the Muddlefoots after dinner while Gosalyn and Honker where in the teen's room. Like she had every evening so far since their return to St. Canard, Portia Featherly had released even more accounts of his deplorable treatment of everyone working on _Darkwing Duck_. Tonight, it had been the story of how he had fired every villain on the show except the iconic Fearsome Four on the spot and denied their contracts, because, according to the claim, he had felt that too many villains, or other actors in general, would clog up his spotlight. Binkie hadn't judged him, and had moved quickly to change the channel, but Drake had asked her not to. He wanted to watch the whole story through.

Afterwards, Binkie had insisted, quite bluntly actually, that she didn't care what that silly old Featherly had said. As far as she was concerned, Drake had been a perfect gentleman, respectable guest, and commendable father. Herb hadn't so quickly agreed with her, but had offered a half attempt to do so when he was threatened with sleeping in the hypothetical doghouse. It had made Drake chuckle, especially since the Muddlefoots didn't own a dog.

A shadow darkened the older Mallard's face, and he ground his teeth together, forcing himself to his shaking feet.

"Dad! Dad, would you sit down?! You're going to fall and really crack your skull open! Even more!"

"No, I won't!" Drake argued, glancing over his shoulder at the door.

"No," Gosalyn warned, seeing his train of thought. "Don't even – DAD!" With a scream, Gosalyn caught Drake around his middle before he could fully collapse to the tile, his eyes rolling back. "Dad! Are you okay?"

A small, wheezing sigh, and Drake pushed himself to his hands and knees, reaching blindly for the teen, who grabbed him and laid across the floor with him.

"Gosalyn… I – I think I better lay down for a bit."

"Gee, wish I would have thought of that," grumbled the redhead. She laid half over him on the floor for a moment, letting him recollect his strength. When he didn't move himself up, however, she prompted him, and carefully eased the slightly taller duck up onto his feet, sure to support most of his weight on her shoulders. He tried to muffle his hisses of pain every time he moved, and she felt him tense and sway with every step, but the teen tried her best to ignore them. Darn her father and his ego.

As they made their way to the front of the trailer, which had never seemed to long before, Gosalyn did her best to kick a path for them to their bunk beds. The two shimmied down the thin hallway, and the teen dumped Drake on the bottom mattress. Finally on a familiar surface, he rolled around and scooted painfully and stiffly back against the wall, opening his arms for Gosalyn to cuddle close, which she readily did.

They sat there for several long moments, Drake keeping the towel pressed against the wound in his head, which was beginning to sting. Some deep instinct somewhere told him he should clean it out, but he just wanted to hold Gosalyn close and lay there, still and pained. The throbbing in his head matched his heart, and he could feel Gosalyn's against his side. Together, slowly, steadily, they both synced up in rhythm and eased to a more relaxed, albeit still tense, speed.

Drake spoke up eventually, his voice stronger than he predicted.

"Do you hate me, Gos?"

Stunned, Gosalyn sat back, staring down at her father in confusion and worry. His own eyes still shining with tears, Drake blinked and glanced helplessly up at her as she watched his every pained twitch and tremble closely, actively searching his face for the meaning behind his absurd question. She had never before realized how old her father really was.

"No, Dad, I don't hate you. I could _never_ hate you."

"Then you clearly didn't _read_ the journal," Drake muttered back, shifting with a small wince.

"I read it all, Dad," the teen argued gently, helping him lay down and pull his sweat-drenched and blood covered windbreaker off. "Cover to cover…" Once Drake was tucked in, Gosalyn knelt by the bunk, dabbing at the dirt, blood, and tears that stuck to his face with the towel. "We've all got dark sides, Dad, and sometimes it gets the better of us. But you've got a lot of light inside you, more than most anyone else. That's why you went to Mr. McDuck begging for a loan to make a TV show about a superhero in the first place."

Drake gave a small chuckle, reaching towards her with one hand and touching her bangs with his fingertips. With a smile, she brushed them away for him and took his hand in her own. "You always could see right through me."

"Still can," she smiled, pulling the blankets over him. "And all I see is light. And when you glow that brightly, it's everyone else who looks empty."

"That's a nice thing to say," he grinned, eyes beginning to slide shut.

"Where do you think I got it," she smiled, gently wrapping her arms around him and leaning her head on his shoulder. "…I love you, Dad."


End file.
